The Long and Winding Road
by Talia Fisher
Summary: Hermione is in the seventh year. Everything has become so boring, so slow, so monotinous. And then, the worst possible thing she could imagine leads her to the person she thought she hated most in the world. Please r/r.
1. Hermione

The Long and Winding Road - Part One

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Somewhere in her smile, she knows…

The Beatles, 1969.

Hermione

Hermione smoothed down her mini-skirt, and walked over to the punch bowl. Ladling some of the scarlet concoction into a paper cup, she sighed. It was a good party, to be sure. Dean Thomas and Lavender Brown had organized it, and it had a Beatles-stroke-Sixties theme. But something was plaguing her…

She watched Harry spin past, dancing with Ginny to _Eight Days a Week_. 

"Hi, Hermione!" he shouted as they spun past. 

"Hi…" she called back, and sipped the punch. It tasted weak. She whacked the cup back down onto the teak table, causing some of the mulberry coloured liquid to dribble over the sides. 

There was Malfoy. Characteristically, he wasn't dancing, but merely reclining in a corner, his milk white face propped on long white fingers. 

What a poser, thought Hermione. So stuck up, thinking the sun shines out of his… He hadn't even bothered to dress up. It a fancy dress party after all. She glanced at her purple polka-dot miniskirt, and white halter-neck top covered in a giant purple flower design. Malfoy was simply in an oat-coloured shirt and black jeans. So boring, she thought. The rest of the seventh years had bothered to dress up and make fools of themselves in the ridiculous sixties clothes. 

Seamus came over. "Care to dance?" he enquired, extending his hand. Hermione took it, and they were soon rock 'n' rolling with the best of them to _From Me to You_. As Seamus spun her out and twirled her back under his arm, she caught the gaze of Malfoy. He was quite blatantly staring at her, his icy silver eyes drinking in her every move. She shot him an affronted look back, and started to chat to Seamus over the beat of the music, trying to ignore the laser glances that Malfoy was inexplicably shooting her. 

"Beatles fan?" he asked, raising his voice so she could hear him. 

"Yeah, they're great," she replied. "My parents always used to play their songs when I was little..."

The song drew to an end, and Seamus kissed her quickly on the cheek. Hermione smiled at him, blushing prettily. He was so sweet… just not her type. She went to sit down, wishing there was something else to drink apart from punch. 

Malfoy was _still_ staring at her. Why was he doing that? And where was Pansy Parkinson? They were meant to be going out…

Hermione got to her feet restlessly, wobbling slightly in the four inch platform boots she was wearing. Deliberately turning her head away from Malfoy's perceptive, unflickering gaze, she walked to the other side of the room, where Harry was pouring himself a lemonade. 

"Hi," she said softly. "Good party, isn't it?"

Harry nodded, sniffing the lemonade cautiously. "Shame about the drinks, though," he commented. 

"I suppose they couldn't get any alcohol, because it's on the school grounds." She gestured at the Gryffindor common room, decorated gaudily with streamers and left-over Christmas tinsel. It was mid-January, and the Christmas spirit had weakened somewhat. 

"Yeah…" murmured Harry. "I could just…"

"…do with a drink," finished Hermione for him. "I know. It's been one of those days." She stared at her platform boots for a second, pursing her lips. "Harry… You were dancing with Ginny. Are you and her-"

"No!" interrupted Harry briskly. "I mean, no," he added more softly. "I just felt sorry for her. No-one asked her to dance."

Hermione raised one eyebrow at him. "You know she still loves you, Harry. Even after all this time, she still loves you. Don't raise her hopes like that."

"It's better than ignoring her completely, and letting her sink into depression!" Harry retorted snappily. "Besides…" he added charmingly. "You'll always be my favourite girl, Hermione."

"Huh," said Hermione, but she allowed Harry to sweep her onto the makeshift dance-floor, and attempt to fling her backward over his arm, salsa-style. 

"Youch," Hermione moaned. "Practice that one before you try it again, dear-heart." She stalked off to join Ron at the side of the room. He was knocking back colas like there was no tomorrow, a morose expression painted on his glum face.

"Hate to break it to you, Ron," said Hermione. "But coke doesn't have any kind of escape properties like a vodka would!"

Ron play punched her. "Have to make do with what's available," he muttered. 

"Ah. You're as disgruntled as the rest of us."

Ron rubbed his eyes irritably. "Malfoy seems to be making eyes at you," he commented.

"Yeah, right!" Hermione exclaimed, forcing surprise. "He wouldn't touch a mudblood like myself with a barge-pole."

"Well, it looks like it's a mudblood's lucky day, then."

"Chuh. So… who are you eyeing up then, Casanova?"

Ron looked at her quickly, and looked away. "No-one."

"Well… what about Lavender? You've always had a bit of a thing about her…"

"No way," Ron muttered.

"Fine," Hermione replied hautily. "So what is your type then?"

"You don't want to know," Ron murmured, but Hermione didn't hear. 

"Well, must network, sweetie, socialize…" Hermione got to her feet, and returned to her faithful friend, the punch bowl. She started to daydream, reminiscing about the previous year. She and Harry had gone out for three months in the sixth year. It could hardly be called a whirlwind romance. At first they had both been equally keen, but Hermione found herself doing all the running, and the excitement had petered out. She had been virtually certain that Harry had been seeing another girl behind her back, but he denied it to this day. She sighed, and ran a hand through her glitter-spangled, back-combed hair. Life was so complex when you grew up. No matter how much soul-searching she did, she still could never draw any conclusions. Did she still love Harry? Maybe, maybe not. There was a bind on her heart, and it seemed to be tugging her in different directions… Strange. 

Out of pure boredom, she poured out another glass of punch, and then slugged in some coke as well. Adding a shot of pumpkin juice, she sipped it slowly, ignoring the foul taste. Life was so dull and repetitive now. Everything had slowed down to an almost deathly pace, and Hermione felt sure she would do something she might regret soon, unless something turned up to hold her interest. She happened to look down at her arm, and saw a vivid bruise, purples and blacks blossoming on her pallid skin. Odd. How had she got that? She was sure that hadn't been there when she got dressed… 

She looked up. Thank God. Malfoy wasn't looking at her anymore. He was talking to a third year, a scrawny little Slytherin boy who was on the house Quidditch team. Malfoy, strangely, was now the captain, as was Harry. The third year was squawking about an up-and-coming match, and Malfoy was waving him away boredly, inspecting an invisible piece of lint on his trousers. 

The party dragged on to the small hours, and gradually people started to drift off to their own dormitories. Hermione was just picking up her bag and heading towards the door, when she heard Lavender's voice call out her name. Hermione sighed deeply, and turned around. 

"Oh, be a darling, and help me and Dean clear up all this mess - please! Go on Hermione, we can't do it all by ourselves…"

Hermione tried to block out the slightly whiney tones of Lavender, and nodded mutely, half-heartedly picking up a stray can from the floor, and chucking it in the direction of the waste-paper bin. The can bounced off the side, and fell several feet away from its target. 

"Nice one," came sultry tones from behind her. Hermione spun around on the ball of her foot, to face the speaker. It was Malfoy. 

Malfoy gazed lazily in the direction of the last dregs of people, who were dancing tiredly out of the room. "No wonder you didn't make it onto the Quidditch team. Mind you…" he said, looking soulfully into her eyes in a disconcerting manner, "you couldn't have made it much worse than it already is."

"You say that, and yet who won the House Cup last year? And the year before? That's right. _Gryffindor_. Besides, I have far more important things to think about than _sport_," she spat angrily. 

"Hmm, sounds fascinating. Like what?" he asked, arching his back seductively. 

"Oh, go to bed, Malfoy," she replied, turning away, unable to think of a better comeback. She bent to pick up the can, and placed it carefully in the bin, not taking any chances this time. She looked up, and noticed she was the only one doing any work. Lavender and Dean were suctioned to each other's mouths, hands roaming everywhere.

"Oh, for heaven's sake," Hermione swore, kicking at the rubbish on the floor angrily. "Do it yourself, you two. I'm off."

Lavender came up for air, gasping heavily. "Hermione…" she breathed, "we'll help you in a sec, don't go…"

"Forget it," Hermione snapped, and stormed from the room. She was half-way down the corridor, when she realised Malfoy was following her. 

"Oh, piss OFF, Malfoy," she whispered loudly, not wanting to wake anyone up. 

"If you like," said Malfoy, smiling briefly at her, before turning off down a staircase, that Hermione assumed must lead to the Slytherin wing. 

Hermione breathed heavily. What an annoying boy. She softly clicked open the door to her dormitory, and tip-toed past a softly-snoring Parvati. Slipping between the sheets, Hermione snuggled down into the pillow, reaching up to pull the curtains around her four-poster. Lately she had been feeling ever so tired, and seemed to be sleeping before her head hit the pillow each night. That Malfoy certainly is strange… she thought sleepily, before slipping willingly into dreams.

*

Hermione was up late, for her, the next day. It was a Sunday, and of course she had done all her homework the previous day. Slipping groggily out of bed, she reeled when she saw who was in the bed next to her.

"I know," came a whisper from across the room. Parvati came and sat down on Hermione's bed. "Bit of a shock, really…"

"Did they…?"

"I don't think so," said Parvati. I think he just stayed here for the night."

Hermione looked back at Lavender's bed. She was tucked up, fast asleep, in the arms of Dean Thomas. 

"Well, they're both still fully clothed," she muttered, slightly shocked. Lavender and Dean had only been going out for about a month. 

Parvati stood up, and shook out her mane of raven black hair. "That girl is heading for trouble," she commented, tossing the words over her shoulder as she headed for the bathroom. 

Hermione shook her head, and turned to her chest of drawers. Pulling out a powder blue robe, she slipped out of her nightdress lithely, and pulled on some fresh underwear. Pulling the silky blue material down over her slim hips, she saw Dean's head start to move, and Lavender stretch out her arms. 

"Good morning," she said pointedly, as she swept past the bed and out of the dormitory. 

She approached the boy's dorm, a smile playing on her lips as she recalled Lavender's shocked expression. Perhaps last night had all been a blur to her… Hermione let out an involuntary snigger, and rapped smartly on the oak paneling.

"Come in!" came Ron's voice a second later. Hermione pressed the handle down, and stepped into the room. Ron and Harry were flopped on the same bed, gazing raptly at something lying on the duvet.

"Hi," Hermione greeted.

"Um… hi," said Harry distractedly. 

"What're you reading?" Hermione asked curiously, coming to sit down opposite them. There on the bed lay a small, leather-bound book, covered with neat italic handwriting on the creamy parchment pages. 

"Harry…?" Hermione started. "Ron? What is that?"

Ron let out a snigger. "Seamus sneaked in the Slytherin dorms last night - while the rest of us were at the party - and he found this!"

"Ron," said Hermione sternly. "Is that someone's diary?"

"Well, what else does it look like!" exclaimed Ron, not foreseeing the warning signs. Harry tore his eyes away from the diary, and quailed at Hermione's furious expression. She snatched up the book, and slammed it shut, with a small puff of dust. 

"How dare you read someone's diary? That's the most private thing anyone can ever own, and you're invading their most personal thoughts. It's disgusting!" Hermione picked up Ron's wand, which was handily lying on the bed, and said clearly, "Sera Liber."

Ron looked at her blankly. "What's that done?" he asked.

"Ron!" Hermione exploded. "Do you _never _listen in Charms? Professor Flitwick taught us the padlock charm only a couple of weeks ago!"

"Great," moaned Harry. "We were just getting to the good bits!"

"What are you going to do with it?" asked Ron.

"Return it to its rightful owner, obviously," Hermione snapped. 

"Then you'll want to know whose it is."

"Go on, Ron, surprise me."

"Ha! Not telling!"

Hermione bit her lip and counted to ten. Sometimes she could not believe that Harry and Ron, and the rest of seventh year boys for that matter, were as old and she was. "Fine," she said calmly, and turned the black leather book over. On the back, printed in silver copper-plate characters, was the name Draco Malfoy. 

"Oh, that was hard," she muttered sarcastically. "Nice one, Ron." Hermione stood up, and headed for the door. She turned at the threshold, and threw her parting comment.

"I expect you're wondering where Dean Thomas is."

Harry and Ron nodded.

Hermione tossed her hair, and smiled beguilingly. "He's in bed with Lavender Brown, in my dormitory." Grinning to herself, and clutching the image of Ron and Harry's jaws dropping to the floor to herself, she wandered down the stairs to have a late breakfast. 

*

Hermione was just digging her fork into the fluffy scrambled eggs, and raising it to her lips for her first taste, when Draco Malfoy dropped himself down into the seat next to her, causing Hermione to drop her fork with surprise.

Clutching a hand to her heart, she turned crossly to the invader of the peace, and recoiled when she saw who it was.

"Damn you, Malfoy," she muttered. "I was just having a nice peaceful breakfast, and _you_ have to bloody well come along." Her hand went to the diary in her robe pocket, but an invisible force made her withdraw her hand. Her rationality questioned this, but for a reason she could not explain, Malfoy's diary lay untouched and unknown in her pocket. She did not give it back.

"Why Hermione," crooned Malfoy sickeningly. "What's so bad about me anyway?"

Hermione shuddered, and shifted a seat down so that she did not have to sit next to him anymore. Malfoy did the same.

"You are unbelievably annoying," she said crossly. "You could have sat anywhere else in the dining hall, and you had to come and disturb me."

Malfoy snaked out a pale slinky hand, and touched Hermione's arm; which she immediately retracted. "Hermione," he said silkily. "What have I ever done to deserve this?"

Hermione spluttered with indignation. "Calling me names for seven years? How about that for starters? Let me see… 'Filthy little mudblood' ring any bells? And making Harry's life a misery with your petty comments and cheating in Quidditch, and sneaking on him to Snape, and-"

Malfoy's lips curled seductively, and Hermione had to force herself to look away, for a reason she couldn't quite fathom. 

"Can't we put it all behind us? I mean, all I ever said was true, my dear. You _are _a mudblood, you must admit…"

Hermione shot to her feet in rage. "How _dare_ you?" she hissed. Hermione picked up her plate of scrambled eggs, and promptly tipped the lot all over Malfoy's smug face. 

"Good morning, Malfoy," said Hermione, and walked out of the Great Hall, her head held high. 

*

Hermione sat down on her bed. Lavender and Dean had disappeared, and that suited her fine. Her hand went to the diary, and her fingers ran down the straight contours through the blue robe. Slowly, Hermione pulled it from her pocket, and ran her thumb down the chamois leather. It was fresh and new, and the pages of the diary were edged with gilt. The high-quality parchment pages had a faint blue and green marble pattern, and book screamed expense. Hermione chipped idly at the silver lettering of Malfoy's name with her nail, and sighed deeply. Why was she interested anyway? Up until a day ago, she had never thought about the idiotic boy at all, except occasionally when he annoyed Harry, and then it was only a fleeting flicker of mutual dislike. 

"No," Hermione said out loud. She stood up, and walked to her chest of drawers. Opening the top drawer, she grabbed a thick winter jumper, and stuffed the diary inside it. Bundling the jumper into a ball, she shoved it to the back of the drawer, and shut it firmly. 

Hermione sat down on bed, and pulled her book, _Anna Karenina_, from under the pillow. Lying back on the pillow, she kicked her shoes off, and immersed herself in the text. But thoughts were niggling at her mind, and her concentration was invaded by pervading images of Malfoy's smug face dancing past her eyes. 

"Aaagh!" she exclaimed, and swore uncharacteristically. She strode from the room, tossing the book on the bed as she went. She pulled her coat from the peg by the door, and walked briskly down the deserted corridor. She ran down the various staircases, and out of the main door, into the Hogwarts grounds. It was snowing heavily, even for mid-January, and Hermione quickly pulled on her coat. She pulled her scarf and hat from the pockets, and ran out into the snow. It was a lovely free feeling, escaping the occasionally suffocating atmosphere of the school, and Hermione leapt across the snow-drifts, her shoes leaving tiny prints in the untouched virgin whiteness. 

She made her way slowly across the pure crisp ground, to the large wooden shed where all the Quidditch equipment was stored, simply for somewhere quiet to sit and think. She tried to turn the doorknob, and felt her skin stick to the frost on the metal. Hermione quickly pulled her hand away, and pulled her gloves out from her coat pocket. Pulling one on, she tried the doorknob again. It still wouldn't turn. Giving an almighty thrust from her shoulders, Hermione burst the door open quickly, and she stumbled unsteadily into the shed. 

"Why hello," came a smooth voice. Hermione let out an involuntary shriek, and clapped her gloved hand to her mouth.

"Malfoy!" she spat. "What the- why is it that wherever I go, you turn up?"

Malfoy stretched lazily like a cat, his smoked ice eyes glinting in the watery winter sunlight pouring in from the windows. "I think you'll find _I_ was here first, Hermione," he said. "So perhaps you're the one who's following _me_." He laughed lightly, raising a pale blonde eyebrow at Hermione.

"In your dreams, Malfoy," said Hermione, turning for the door.

"Oh, going so soon?" purred Malfoy. "Are you a little _afraid _of me, perchance?"

Hermione felt her mouth fall open in indignation. "Fine," she said. "Fine." And Hermione sat down on the bench beside him. 

"What're you doing in here, anyway?" she asked. Malfoy gestured to the sleek racing broom lying on his lap. It was the latest and best broom, one that Harry had been lusting over for months, the Devilstar. Malfoy had a tiny tub of wax balanced on his knee, and started to lovingly rub some into the handle. He looked back at Hermione for a second.

"What are _you_ doing here?"

Hermione looked at her knees. "I just needed to get out of there for a while. Have a bit of peace. God knows, I didn't expect to find _you_ here."

Malfoy stared at her engagingly. "Why? What was plaguing you? Were you feeling bad about tipping scrambled egg all over my head? I had to have a cold shower to get all the muck out…"

"So sorry. Nothing was plaguing me!" said Hermione, a tad too defensively. Malfoy smiled to himself.

"What?" she snapped. 

"Oh, nothing," said Malfoy, a lithe grin playing at the corners of his mouth. Hermione ignored him. She stared at the row of brooms hung in formation on the walls of the shed, and the five boxes stacked on top of each other. They were, she knew, the silver containers that held the Quaffle, Bludgers, and Golden Snitch. There were various pieces of broken brooms strewn on the floor, and a red and white striped metal bar that looked as though it had once been part of one of the goal posts, propped against one of the windows. 

"D you often come here?" she asked.

"Heard that one before," muttered Malfoy, laughing. Hermione groaned.

"I didn't mean…"

"I know you didn't," said Malfoy. "I do actually. Being the Slytherin Quidditch captain, well, I have to spend a lot of time working out… strategies." 

"Really," said Hermione cynically, tapping her thumb nail idly against the polished rust-coloured timber of the bench. "So," she uttered boredly. "How's it going with Pansy?"

Malfoy lifted his platinum eyes to meet Hermione's. "We split up a week ago," he said softly. Hermione could tell he was trying desperately to look nonchalant, but a tiny quiver in his lower lip that most would have missed told her otherwise. 

"Why?" she asked quietly.

Malfoy looked at his lap. "None of your business," he muttered piously. Hermione nodded. She understood. Her thoughts flicked back to the same time the previous year, when she and Harry had broken up. It had been messy, and painful, and had taken several months before they regained the sort of friendship they had owned previously. She suddenly felt a jolt in her hand, a very nearly irresistible urge to grab Malfoy's own terribly white hand, and show him someone… cared.

But I don't care! Hermione's thoughts shrieked in indignation. That's preposterous, illogical, completely and totally…

She slipped her hand into her pocket to keep it where it should stay, and sighed. They chatted about a lot of things, both important and totally irrelevant, and Hermione realised, with a twinge of reproach, how much she was enjoying herself. She stood up suddenly, and craned out of the lightly frosted window. The sun was slowly slipping away behind the horizon, a blue-grey scrawl hung past fairytale icing sugar fields and houses, and the clouds were climbing the increasingly dark skies. 

"It's getting late," said Hermione, glancing at the delicate silver watch on her wrist, and reading it in shock. She had been in here talking to Malfoy for a lot longer than she had realised. She looked back out of the window. It had snowed a lot more, and from what she could see, the snow level had risen quite considerably.

"I'd better be heading back," she said casually.

"Mmm, me too," Malfoy agreed. Hermione picked up her coat, and walked to the door. She tried to turn the doorknob. It was stuck fast. 

"Oh, Jesus," said Hermione irritably. She wrenched at it, in vain.

"Oh, come here, you little weakling," sniggered Malfoy, and strode towards the door, in a manner he obviously thought was extremely impressive to helpless girls such as Hermione. Hermione put her hands on her hips, and watched him reach for the doorknob. 

"God!" he exclaimed, having made no more progress than Hermione. 

"See!" she interjected.

"I wonder why it won't open," he muttered.

"It's _obvious_," Hermione threw back, relishing knowing more than he did. "The ice has frosted over the lock, and the cracks between the door and the doorframe. There's no way we can open the door, because water expands when it solidifies-"

"Yes, thank you, Miss Know-It-All," snapped Malfoy insecurely. "Use your wand, and get us out of here."

Hermione raised one eyebrow, and dug in her robes. There was nothing in her pocket. 

"Shi-" she started, and automatically stopped herself. Frantically, she dove into her coat pockets, and then went back to her robes, flipping the pockets out. A couple of Sickles rolled onto the floor, but nothing more. "Damn it," she said. She was wearing her new robe, and stupidly had forgotten to transfer her wand from her usual robes into the new one. She suddenly whirled on Malfoy.

"Give me your wand," she said impatiently.

"Don't tell me you haven't got yours?" smirked Malfoy. "Well, well, well, wonders will never cease. The teacher's pet has lost her wand!" And he chuckled, delighted.

"I have not," snorted Hermione. "Just give me your wand, Malfoy, and I'll get us out of here."

Malfoy picked at his green Quidditch robes. "Just been for a practice," he said smarmily. "There isn't a pocket in these robes, so I always leave my wand in my dormitory."

"Oh my God," muttered Hermione, suddenly feeling faint. "There's no way of getting out, Malfoy," she muttered. She walked over to one of the windows, and managed to wrench it open.

"Hermione," said Malfoy. "You obviously think you're thinner than you really are."

Hermione shot him a degrading glance, and used all her strength to push it open to its greatest degree. Summoning up a breath, she yelled into the night.

"Help! Help!" she shouted hoarsely. "We're trapped in here… Please help…"

Malfoy shot her a cynical glance. "Look Granger," he said. "The only person who'd be able to hear us is that imbecile Hagrid, and his hut's miles away in the other direction. The wind's carrying North, he'll never hear you in a million years. I would have thought _you_ with all your _scholastic aptitude_ and your _huge intelligence_ could have worked that out for yourself." He shot her a triumphant grin, and sat down on the bench.

"Well, at least I'm trying," Hermione snapped, and kicked the wall. "Unlike _some people_ I could mention…" Malfoy merely smiled repulsively at her. Something in Hermione snapped.

"Look, you pathetic little squirt," she shrieked. "You are obviously not comprehending the situation. We are locked in here for at least the night, if not longer. We're not going to get out until someone happens to wander past, and God knows when that might happen. This is deadly serious. Now help me think of something. For one thing, I've got a major Arithmancy test tomorrow, I can't miss it!"

Malfoy tapped his long white fingers on his knee, and propped his chin on his other hand. "Now I don't know," he said thoughtfully. "It might not be so bad…" and he looked at Hermione in a way she definitely did not like. She turned away, and put her face in her hands. How was this happening? Locked in a cold shed for the night, with _Draco Malfoy_ for company… 

To be continued…


	2. Draco

The Long and Winding Road - Part Two

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I'm no angel… but does mean that I won't fly?

Dido 1999

Draco

He stared over at Hermione, hunched in the corner of the shed, shivering. The sun had set now, and wisps of clouds were chasing the tiny star pin-pricks dotted throughout the skies. The moon had come out, and hung like a sliver of white gold in the mosaic of Prussian blue and starlight, a thin piece of its entire self. It was growing increasingly cold, and Draco watched as yet more baby-soft ice kisses wound their way down from the heavens, thousands falling at once.

"This is all your fault, Malfoy," she said vengefully, tucking her nose into her drawn up knees. 

Draco stared at her in silence for a while. "And how do you come to that conclusion, Granger?" he asked. Hermione did not reply, for in truth, there was no reply to be given. It was true. They were both equally to blame and also not to blame. 

Draco reached over to a thin cord dangling by the door, and pulled it sharply. The cracked blue glass lamp high up on the shelf above their heads suddenly burst into light, casting a dusky mellow blue beam all around the shed. Hermione was shivering, and she hugged her thin coat around her. Draco was cold too, and he reached into his jacket pocket. He pulled out a tall bottle filled with transparent liquid that half-filled it.

"What's that?" asked Hermione suspiciously, analysing it sharply.

"Vodka," said Draco simply. He took a quick swig, and tried to disguise his grimace as the liquid burnt his throat. Hermione stared at him. 

"You think you're so great, don't you," she said shortly. "The steady stream of girlfriends, the drinking, the living it up, being captain of the Quidditch team… Your gaggle of cronies who pander after your every need…"

Draco turned his mesmerizing gaze on her, and put the vodka bottle down on the bench. "I'd say my life is a great deal more exciting than yours, yes. And don't tell me you weren't longing for a drink at that pathetic party last night. I saw it in your eyes."

Hermione reeled, and Draco saw this, and was pleased. "How dare you!" she exclaimed. "How dare you presume to know what I think and feel?"

Draco smiled lightly. "Believe me, Hermione," he said. "I know a lot of things about you."

Hermione stared at him, aghast. "You… you… called me Hermione," she whispered, almost awe-struck. "You never call me Hermione. Ever. It's either Granger, or one of your many…"

"Terms of endearment?" suggested Draco. 

"If you're using the word in the sarcastic sense, then yes," she replied cuttingly. And then, as if what Draco had said only just occurred to her, she said, "How can you say that? How can you know _anything_ about me? Anything at all? You and I… we're enemies. On different sides. Dark and light. You're Slytherin, I'm Gryffindor… Yes you've spoken to _Harry_, to tease him, bait him, upset him… But never me. I've always been the one who stands in the shadows, watching anxiously. I do believe the only time you've ever directed a remark at me personally, was when you called me a filthy little Mudblood. You know nothing, Malfoy. Nothing at all." 

Malfoy leaned back on the hard bench, and gazed unnervingly at Hermione. "And how can you be so sure… Hermione?"

"Stop talking in riddles, Malfoy," she snapped, and turned away to face the wall. Draco raised one blonde eyebrow at her, and picked up the vodka bottle with a heavy chink of glass against wood. Hermione surreptitiously turned to stare at him as he lifted the rim of the bottle to his lips, and the clear liquid flowed inside the dark mouth. 

"Trying to keep out the cold?" she asked disdainfully. Draco merely regarded her neutrally, as a cat might regard a small child. 

"It won't work, you know," she carried on, regardless. "If you get drunk, your nervous system-"

"Yes, thank you, I don't need another lecture from Miss Goody-Two-Shoes," said Draco scathingly, and took another swig in defiance. "Besides, got any better ideas?"

Hermione shrugged, and stared at her shoes. She was shivering quiet violently, Draco noticed, and with shock, he realised just how cold his hands were. Rubbing them together briskly, he stood up to try to get the circulation going. There was an old cracked mirror on the wall of the shed, for no good reason that Draco could think of. He brushed some of the dusty cobwebs away, and stared into the murky, distant reflection. A pale boy stared back, his skin even more startlingly white and delicate looking than usual. The platinum eyes flashed in burnished defiance, and snaky tendrils of moon-coloured hair raked his forehead. 

Hermione voice cut through his thoughts. "My, my someone _does _have a big head," she muttered. Draco did not attempt to make any kind of comeback, and merely flopped down in the opposite corner of the room from Hermione, on an ancient pile of bean-bags that were faded and ripped. Some of the dust-coloured polystyrene beads popped out as he sat down, and Draco poured them from one hand to the other. He raised a tentative finger to his lower lip, and felt ice-cold flesh at his touch. "Jesus," he muttered. "It must be well below freezing now."

"Congratulations, Sherlock," came to sardonic reply from the other side of the shed. Draco raised his eyes to the heavens, and decided to give up the niceties.

"Look," he said shortly. "We've got to get through tonight, preferably with all limbs intact. I don't want to fight with you. But if you're to continue these little _witticisms_ of yours, which quite frankly are baiting me more than you most likely realise, then things will have to be said - and done."

"Is that a threat, Malfoy?" Hermione sugared, feigning innocence. 

"Wouldn't you like to know," muttered Draco crossly, running a tired hand through his hair. He lay back against the cold, hard wood of the wall, and bit his lip to stop the retorts from tumbling out in their usual cutting way. He pulled the vodka bottle out of his jacket again, and took a small sip. 

"Want some?" he offered. Hermione snorted, and ignored him. Draco put the bottle down on the floor. He could see Hermione visibly trembling from head to foot from the cold, and heard the chatter of his own teeth inside his mouth. 

"You know the best way to keep out the cold, don't you?" he said, purposefully provocatively. Hermione shot Draco a glance so cutting that it would have mown down a grown man at thirty paces. 

"If you think I'm going to sleep with _you_," she said icily, "You've certainly got another think coming, my _friend_."

Draco smiled. It had worked. He'd baited her. "Just a bit of body heat," he crooned. "Just come and lie next to me."

Hermione looked at his hard for a moment, antagonizing the situation. Draco could see she was trying to stop shaking so visibly. 

"All right," she muttered at length, and stumbled across the shed to the bean-bags, where she flopped down next to Draco, still eyeing him suspiciously. 

"I know what all boys your age are after, you know," she muttered, pulling a beanbag up against the wall. "So _don't try it on_."

"Would I?" Draco exclaimed innocently, pulling the tatty cord above his head. The shed was plunged into darkness, and he waited for a second for his eyes to adjust to the gloom. Hermione was lying down on the beanbags, her coat thrown over her body like a make-shift blanket. Draco lay down close next to her, and shut his eyes. The cold penetrated his every bone, and he lay there, thoughts running through his head non-stop. Presently, Draco heard Hermione's breathing become deeper and more prolonged. He opened his eyes and scrutinized what he could see of her face in the dark. 

She wasn't conventionally pretty, he decided. Not in the way of the Patil twins or Katie Bell. Nor did she have natural feminine allure as Pansy Parkinson owned, who flaunted it to its furthest degree. He thought of Pansy. Bottle blonde, voluptuous, coy. She was very attractive, but almost too easy; in more than one sense. He hadn't had any chase to capture her affections, and though her looks were, undeniably, stunning, she had the pretence of a false, fake doll. He disliked that. 

Hermione. Brunette, curly locks tumbling down her back. A fresh, open face, and dewy velvet eyes that seemed to see right into your soul. Her nose was small with a smattering of freckles, and her lips were palest coral pink. Everything was natural, pieced together in a hap-hazard way. And in a strange sort of sense, she was more beautiful than Pansy. Pansy was pretty, yes, and bubbly, and sexual. But never beautiful. 

Draco stared at Hermione's smoky form in the blackness. Her slim body, small breasts that just showed slightly at the neckline of her top, the pinkish-gold sheen of her skin. He reached a hand out to caress her cheek, which still felt warm even in the cold of the shed that seemed to chill you to your very core. 

Draco ran a hand down her side, feeling the slim contours and slight curves of her body. It's time to stop pretending, he thought to himself. I want Hermione, he thought purposefully, the first time he had allowed his mind to realise it. And I need to have her. He leaned over so that his face was less than an inch from her own. Her lips were slightly parted, and Draco gently met them with a fleeting kiss.

"Good night," he breathed, and lay down on the beanbag, his face turned towards Hermione's.

*

Morning sunlight streamed through the small windows of the shed, mixed with a cold blue light reflected off the snow. Blearily, Draco opened his eyes. His skin was so cold, it felt as through he was wrenching his eyelids through a layer of ice. Hermione lay asleep, still, her breast rising and falling slowly. Draco watched her, transfixed. He was overcome with a sense of longing, and was just reaching out his fingers to brush away the irresistible lock of hair that had fallen across one of her eyes, when she stirred. Draco watched as her body arched slightly, and her mouth opened cleanly to take a new fresh breath of air. Her eyes slowly opened, and the first thing they saw was Draco, looking down. He saw a tiny jolt in her expression, before she recovered herself.

"Sleep well?" he asked.

"No better than you did, I'm sure," she said, and yawned and stretched.

Draco couldn't help himself. He saw his opportunity to take her off guard, and his arms were outstretched towards her before his brain could realise what he was doing. 

Draco reached forward and grasped Hermione around the waist. He pulled her towards him, and got a tiny glimpse of her mouth opening in shock, before he plunged forward and kissed her deeply. It wasn't a rough kiss, but it seemed to go on for eons, deeper and deeper, into different heights of ecstasy. His lips were bruised and burnished, and electricity shot through his flaming body. Draco was suddenly jolted back into consciousness, when he felt Hermione pull away sharply. 

"I'm sorry," he said immediately, seeing her face. "I'm so sorry, Hermione. I didn't think, I didn't-"

He stopped. Hermione was regarding him with a bemused expression, and she cupped her chin in her hand, still gazing at him. Draco felt uncomfortable. He longed to know what those velveteen eyes were drawing in, and what her mind was thinking.

"I'm sorry," he said again, feeling stupid and smitten at the same time. 

Hermione carried on staring. And then, finally, she spoke. "Don't be," she said simply.

"What?" Draco exclaimed, before he could stop himself. "But-"

"I pulled away," Hermione finished for him. "I know." And she opened her mouth as if to say something else, and then thought better of it, and shut it again. 

Draco stared at her in bewilderment. He didn't know what to think or do; an unusual predicament for him. And then, he didn't have time to think, for Hermione was slowly leaning forward towards him, and Draco shut his eyes and leaned in too. He felt her breath on her skin, and tingled, knowing she was only a hair's-breadth away from him. He felt a tiny caress from her bottom lip, and then - 

"Well, well! What _do_ we have here, hmm?!"

Draco and Hermione jumped apart, and gazed guiltily up into the face of Madam Hooch. 

*

Draco lay back on his bed, staring at the ceiling. He could still taste Hermione on his lips, feel the firm press of her mouth on his, the voltage of electricity passing between them as they stole one last kiss before fleeing to their separate dormitories. 

Madam Hooch would never let him live that one down. Thankfully, she assumed that they had come to the shed early that morning. If it ever got out that two Hogwarts pupils spent the night together in the Quidditch shed… well. It didn't bear thinking about. 

Draco let out a low moan. Hermione had not said a word to him, just slipped away at the main staircase, and was gone in seconds, her cloak flapping around the mahogany door that then slammed in his face. He was left up in the air, not knowing what was to happen next, nor what the correct thing was to do. 

He stood up, and went into the bathroom to have a shower. Stepping into the warm pelting water, he lifted his face to look straight as the water flow, his eyes wide open, seeing through the pounding downpour. It was funny. Every girl he had ever gone out with (and there were now far too many to count), he had chosen them for their looks. They had all been shallow, self-centred, one-dimensional people. Hermione… she was something different. She had a spirit, a fluency, and an independence. And a lack of wanting him, which made him feel extremely put out, and also all the more eager. Now that he thought about it, she was the only girl who hadn't fawned over him, been desperate to go out with him… 

He stepped out of the shower, pushing the wet strands of hair out of his face impatiently. Dressing in a fresh black robe, he went back into the dormitory. Crabbe had gone. Thank God. He was becoming more and more of an annoyance every day. Aconite, his smoky black cat was staring at him aloofly, poised and perfect on the window sill. She had been a birthday present from his mother that year. More things lavished on him out of guilt. She wasn't bad, his mother. And he knew she cared, it was just…

Never mind. Aconite wound her way down onto the bed, and regarded Draco with large fiery eyes. She permitted him to stroke her, and rub her gently around her ears, but then suddenly she had had enough, and hissed before leaping lithely onto the floor, and trotting over to the radiator. 

"You've got the right idea, Aconite," Draco said out-loud to his cat. It was true. This January had been the coldest one on record so far, and Draco shivered in the thin black robe. He sat down next to her on the floor, and she grudgingly curled up in a fluffy ball next to his knee. Draco ran his hand down the warm, smooth fur, and felt her arch her back at his light touch. 

"Raaow," cried Aconite, batting at an invisible prey in the fronds of the carpet. She looked up at Draco with beseeching copper eyes, and opened her mouth again to let out another strangled call. Draco grinned at her wryly, listening to the piteous whinge, and took reached inside up to his bedside table where his green Quidditch robes had been flung. There was a pocket sewn on the inside of the robes, and he pulled his wand out.

"Oh yeah," he said wryly to Aconite. "So my wand _was_ in my robes after all. How silly of me…" He grinned, and flicked his wand to produce a handful of chicken-flavoured cat treats, which he fed to Aconite, who purred like a steam engine. 

"How silly of me," he repeated, and picked Aconite up and held her fur next to his cheek. "Looks like it could be a very interesting term, kitty cat…" Aconite let out an outraged yowl, and wriggled out of Draco's grip, giving him a parting kick in his stomach as she ran across the room, shaking her fur, shocked at such indignities. 

*

Draco walked along the corridor, looking around him. He was well and truly lost. The different houses, never, as a rule, visited each other's wings in the castle, and when he had gone to that travesty of a party the other night, he had only managed to find the Gryffindor common room by complete accident. There was nothing for it. He would just have to ask someone…

At that very moment, the door he was just passing burst open, and a black-haired boy shot out, his head down. Draco only caught a fleeting glimpse, but it was enough. That was Potter, looking rather anguished to say that least. Strange. Perhaps he caught sight of himself in a mirror! Draco cackled malevolently to himself. Maybe Ron was in there, he'd surely know where Hermione was. 

Sure enough, Draco cautiously pushed open the door to see Ron sitting on the edge of his bed, head in his hands. Draco felt a little intrusive, despite himself. Ron looked up quickly as he heard the door swing shut. 

"Harry?" he asked, and Draco saw his face fall as he saw who it was, and immediately, his eyes fill with distrust. "Malfoy!" he snarled. "What the hell are you doing here?"

Draco reclined lazily on the bookcase just behind him. "Now, now, Weasley. No need for unpleasantness. I just want to know… Well, do you know where Hermione is?"

Ron rocketed up from the bed, leaping to his feet. "Why? Why do _you_ want to know where Hermione is? What are you going to do?"

Draco smiled. "My, my, someone did get out of the wrong side of-"

"Shut up," Ron interjected, snappishly. "I wouldn't tell you if I did know, you rat. I suppose you've already tried her dormitory."

"Well, that's the thing, I…"

"Can't find it?" finished Ron for him. "Well, tough. I'm not telling you, unless you tell me _why_ you want to find her."

Draco sighed inwardly. This was a problem he had not foreseen. Of course, Potter and Weasley wouldn't exactly be best pleased with Hermione going out with the treacherous Draco Malfoy. Ah. 

"No matter," said Draco breezily. "Enjoy your rendezvous." He caught a glimpse of Ron's white face and his expression, before turned away, and setting back down the corridor. Oh, the things one does for love, he thought to himself, and smirked, brushing ice-coloured tendrils of hair away from his eyes. 

The girls' dorms must be near here somewhere… He saw Lavender Brown tripping out of an identical oak-paneled door, and realised that must be Hermione's room. Lavender was in a Muggle dress, far too short for her unfortunately chunky thighs. It's your funeral, Dean, he thought nastily to himself as he watched her wobble down the stairs in black velvet sandals with four-inch heels. 

Draco knocked smartly at the door. A second later, Hermione opened the door, and he saw her eyes widen.

"Come in!" she said quickly, and practically pulled him inside, looking briefly around the corridor before shutting the door firmly. 

"Ashamed of me, or something?" Draco quipped, the corners of his mouth betraying his mock-hurt expression. Hermione smiled. 

"What are you doing here?" she asked.

"To find out if you're a Mamma Mia girl."

"Abba?" Hermione exclaimed, frowning confusedly. Draco snorted.

"Italian food, Hermione! Pizza… pasta… unserweiter."

Hermione laughed. "That's German, you idiot!" she said. Draco looked distinctly ruffled. 

"Linguist, are you?" he snapped.

"Fluent in five languages," said Hermione proudly. "And I'm learning Russian in my spare time."

Draco mouthed a swear word. "_Anyway_," he said quickly. "Do you like Italian food?"

"Who's asking?"

"Well… me!"

"I do, very much. Why?" she asked, smiling at him, for she knew what the answer would be. 

"Roberto's? Seven? Glad-rags?"

"You're on!" said Hermione. "Only… don't tell Harry or Ron. I don't think they'd like it much."

"You're telling me," muttered Draco, and headed for the door. He shot a parting comment over his shoulder.

"And, Hermione? Do yourself a favour, and don't borrow anything from your friend Lavender's wardrobe."

*

Draco had managed to find his way back to Hermione's dormitory that night. He had met her looking rather different than usual.

"Done something to your… um… hair?" he almost stuttered. 

"Done something to your brain?" she shot back, and took his arm.

And now they were in Roberto's, and Draco was picking at his pasta, for his eyes would not be torn away from Hermione. Some people just have the sort of percussive face, that means you simply have to look at them. They're not necessarily pretty, in fact more often untraditionally attractive than not. There's something in their movements, their expressions, the life from their eyes that makes you want to drink in their every feature. And this was the way Draco felt about Hermione. There was no way he could put it into words, she just seemed to… glow. It wasn't physical or mental, or anything that he had ever felt before, simply an unearthly attraction that penetrated his every fibre. Almost… spiritual. Except that spirituality had become a cliché, over-used in the wrong context, and now was a slightly taboo subject. There simply was no word for something so deep.

Of course, thought Draco to himself, grinning, it didn't hurt matters that Hermione was dressed in a silky dress-robe, in a misty colour, with sheens of blues and greens, like the earth seen through films of clouds. It swung lightly over her slight curves, and the dipping neckline showed her pale smooth skin. 

"Not a bit like Lavender," he said smarmily.

"That supposed to be your gentleman's charm?"

Draco smirked by way of reply. Hermione suddenly sniggered.

"Sorry!" she giggled. "But that dress she was wearing tonight…!"

"Aha! Not so high and mighty after all!"

"What, moi?" Hermione mocked. 

"Very funny, you." Draco slapped down a smattering of galleons on the bill plate, and they ran out into the dark Hogsmeade street. It was lit by the electric glow of the line of shops, and salsa music was belting from a nearby Latino restaurant.   
"Let's dance!" said Hermione impulsively. Draco stared at her. 

"What? Here, in the street?"

"Don't worry, little Draco darling! I'll lead!" And Hermione grabbed Draco around the waist, and started to guide him around the cobbled street. She did a quick-step, and Draco stumbled and trod on her black velvet sandaled foot. 

"You've had too much wine, Hermione!" he cried, slightly terrified.

"C'mon!" she shrieked, and flung Draco back over her arm, samba-style. "Give in to the rhythm, Draco!"

And he did, and suddenly became a lot easier, as they cavorted up and down, regardless of the people watching them from the restaurant windows. 

"When my baby," sang Hermione breathlessly, "when my baby smiles at me, I go to Rio… de Janeiro."

"Now I'm not the kind of person," Draco joined in, giving up all pretence of being cool and collected. "with a passionate persuasion, for dancing… or romancin'."

"But I give in to the rhythm, and my feet follow the beatin' of my heart!" cried Hermione, tripping over the edges of her robe. "When my baby, when my baby smiles at me, I go to Rio!"

"I'm a salsa fellow, when my baby smiles at me! The sun lights up my life!"

They stumbled back down the road towards the train, giggling shamelessly. Hermione had lost one of her sandals, and she hopped down the cobbles. 

"Never thought you had it in you, Draco!" she exclaimed, as they fell back into the plush seats of the Express. 

"Meaning?"

"Never mind…" she said sleepily, and slipped sideways onto Draco's shoulder. He had to half carry her all the way from the station up to Hogwarts. Shoving the door open to her dormitory, he dropped her carefully down on her bed, noting that Lavender's bed was empty, and it was after twelve. 

"Good night," he said, almost tenderly, and immediately checked himself. As he pulled her duvet over her, he noticed how pale her skin was.

"She really did have too much wine," he said, feeling slightly responsible. He stumbled tiredly down the endless corridors to his own wing, and collapsed into bed, his eyelids heavy. Draco fell asleep immediately, mumbling to himself.

"When my baby smiles at me… I go to-" he yawned, "Rio…"

To be continued…


	3. Ron

The Long and Winding Road - Part Three

__

I'm writing to reach you… Only want to teach you… About you…

Travis 1999

Ron

He stared around the room morosely, picking at the ridiculous purple flares and the T-shirt with a giant yellow smiley face on the front. Ron took a bored swig of coke, watching Harry prance around the room with his sister. They were both laughing, and Ron could see the happiness on Ginny's face, the spark in her brown eyes. Ordinarily, he would have been feeling angry, as he knew full well that Harry had no intention of going out with Ginny. But now…

He sighed. What was the point of even considering it, when he couldn't even admit what he was to himself? He just felt so unsure, and yet, deep down, he knew he was different from all the other boys. Perhaps he'd always known it, perhaps all these years he'd just been denying the truth. All those crushes on male teachers that he quickly put down to teenage hormones running wild. It had been so painful, and so hard keeping his feelings from the others, particularly Harry. He'd found a notebook the other day, from when he'd been thirteen. Pages and pages of diary entries about how this teacher or that was so great, so impressive. He never came out and said it, but Ron remembered the feelings of longing and of desire. Of course he was gay! Who was he kidding! All these years of burying his feelings, hoping they'd 'just go away'. He was just lying to himself. 

And of course, he had to fancy the one person in the world it would be hardest to tell. He watched Harry talking to Hermione now. Harry Potter, defeater of the Dark Lord, Quidditch champion, attractive, friendly Harry. Swarms of girls lusted after him each day, and here was Ron, loving him just the same. He ran a hand through his hair, and looked around at the girls, giggling, flirting, dancing… He had scrutinized each one's face and body a million times, trying to force himself to find them attractive. But it was no good. The friendly ones like Hermione were just like his sister, and the popular, aloof ones were simply frightening, unknown creatures. Girls didn't seem to find him attractive either, which at least reduced the problem slightly. He couldn't quite understand why, though. Looking in the bathroom mirror each morning, looking hard at his hair and features, he didn't see an ugly face staring back. He certainly wasn't vain, but somehow he'd never felt that he should be worrying about his looks. They were there, and he felt no reason to obsess. He didn't think he was ugly, not like some boys. 

But he obviously was, because no girl… or boy, for that matter, had shown the slightest interest in him. It was all so depressing... 

No. It was no good. Try as he might, he could not find one girl in that room remotely attractive. It was funny. He could see, as others did, which girls were pretty, and which were not. He could look at them all and give them marks out of ten, like his brothers, but the prettiness didn't really make any difference in the end. None of them made him feel like Harry did. 

Harry was now dancing with Hannah Abbott, the blonde-haired girl from Hufflepuff. Talk about a lady's man…

Hermione came and plonked herself down beside Ron at that moment. She was saying something about the drinks, and Ron made idle conversation, not really concentrating. He looked up, and saw Malfoy staring straight at Hermione, with an almost fierce expression in his eyes. Ron pointed this fact out to Hermione, who immediately declared it to be a load of rubbish. But Ron could tell from the way she replied too quickly that she knew it full well. 

"So who are you eyeing up then, Casanova?" he heard Hermione say, and thought how ironic that question was. 

"No way!" he heard himself exclaim as Hermione suggested Lavender. Lavender! He watched her and Dean Thomas slow-dancing together. Lavender's face was just so… boring. All girl's faces were boring, to him. There was no spark of attraction there at all. 

Eventually, Hermione must have taken the hint, because she wandered boredly away, back to the punch bowl. The party dragged on, and eventually Ron sought refuge in the toilets. Languishing depressively in one of the cubicles, he heard some people come in, and walk over to the cracked mirrors that hung over the washbasins. 

"You shouldn't really be in here!" said a voice, and Ron immediately recognised it as Harry's. Who was he talking to? Ron wondered. His answer came a second later.

"Hey, boys' toilets hold no secrets for me, Harry," came a creamy, honeyish voice. A female voice. Ron strained to recognise it. 

"Ohh," she sighed deeply. "Harry. I feel a little… cold."

"Oh!" said Harry, sounding slightly out of his depth at this. "Um. Why don't you… um… I mean, Pansy, maybe you could-"

__

Pansy!! shrieked Ron silently. Pansy Parkinson? But isn't she going out with Malfoy? Oh, but they broke up a few days ago… he realised. But, _Pansy Parkinson_!

"Mmm, Harry," she moaned, and Ron stiffened, hearing kissing sounds. No, he thought. This can't be happening. Please God, do something to stop this, wake me up from the nightmare…

A girlish giggle came, and more kissing sounds, then heavy breathing. Ron felt physically ill. He leant on the cubicle door, which he had forgotten to lock. The door immediately burst open, and Ron skittered across the cold toilet floor. 

"Um!" he said, his voice about two octaves higher than usual. "Fancy seeing you here!" And he fled, feeling a hideous mixture of jealousy and embarrassment.

Jesus, he thought as he stormed back to his dormitory. Only you could make such a _huge_ mess of that situation. You idiot, he repeated over an over in his head. You're so pathetic, you big pouf. 

He got into bed, not bothering to change into his pyjamas.

Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic, he chanted over and over to himself. You're a sham of a boy, you're just a mockery, a big stupid girl, you complete loser. Its your fault you're like this, you _pathetic_ homo. 

He pounded the pillow in frustration, wanting to hurt himself in the same way. Harry will never love you back, he thought. Just try and pretend to be normal, and don't even dare to hope. 

*

Ron woke to the not very pleasant sound of Seamus's raucous laugh, reverberating all around the room. He opened his eyes, to see Neville, Seamus and Harry bending over something on Seamus's bed. 

"Get up, lazy," said Seamus, "and come and check this out!"

"Wha…?" groaned Ron, pushing the duvet regretfully off himself. He stumbled out of bed, and saw Harry standing in only a pair of boxer shorts. He forced himself to think normally. Normal, straight thoughts, he chanted mentally. Straight, straight, straight. 

"Look at this, Ron!" cried Harry, and pointed at the small black book lying on the bed. 

Just be normal, he pleaded inwardly. "What is it?" he asked, offhandedly. 

"When everyone else was at the party last night, I found the Slytherin dorms, and broke into the Seventh year boys one!" exclaimed Seamus. "I found Malfoy's diary under his mattress!"

"Fantastic!" said Ron happily, glad for a distraction. "Found anything good in it?"

"Have we ever!" said Neville. "Read him that bit about Pansy, the one back there, Seamus."

"Oh God, yes, this is hysterical, listen to this-" Seamus flicked through the pages of the diary. He put on a posh voice that vaguely resembled Draco's. "_Pansy and I broke up today. It was a very strange experience. I realised, that, as ever, our relationship was based only on mutual, physical attraction…_" Seamus stopped reading, because he was bent double laughing. Ron laughed cruelly along with the rest of them. It was so nice to have a joke at others' expense. No matter how saintly people could be, it was human nature to be bitchy and hateful sometimes. 

They flicked through a few more pages, and eventually Neville got bored, and drifted away. 

"I'm off to have breakfast, you two," said Seamus presently, growing bored with the diary. "You coming?"

Ron and Harry silently shook their heads, engrossed in the diary. There was something wickedly exciting about probing into someone's innermost thoughts like that. And it was ten times more exciting when that person was your sworn mortal enemy. 

Harry budged up on his bed, and patted the duvet. Ron flopped down next to him, so that their body's were almost touching. He had now perfected a technique of being normal when he was with Harry. He just did not look him in the face, he avoided all eye contact when he was close to him, and he could keep his mind on the matter in hand. In a manner of speaking, you understand. 

They chuckled together over Malfoy's fixation with Pansy, and his lengthy vocabulary, that sounded just as though he was showing off to his own diary. They had reached one of the fairly recent entries. 

"Hey, look at this!" said Harry delightedly. Malfoy's perfect italic script suddenly had changed its tune. For pages, he had been spouting forth about the loss of Pansy, much to Ron and Harry's amusement. Now, he was describing someone new - and unnamed. 

"_It had suddenly dawned on me that there may perhaps be a person that I like. And perhaps have always liked. She has been sitting there under my nose since the first year, and, naturally, I have always dismissed her as a nothing. It goes against all my principles… My father's principles. And to name her, to write down her identity here would be like admitting it to myself, which I really do not think I'm ready to do yet."_

"Intriguing," said Ron, grinning at Harry. They flicked through the next few pages, which only contained mundane entries about how Snape had yet again favoured him in Potions, and how that had wiped the smug smiles off the pathetic Gryffindors' faces. 

"Bla de bla de bla," said Harry, ignoring the less than polite remarks Malfoy had made about their school house.

"Ooh, look at this one," said Ron, pointed to the very last entry. It read:

"_I was right about that girl I mentioned earlier. She really is something more special than I ever gave her credit for. Certainly not a looker, or poster material, which is strange. I'm very superficial. I always go for girls on their looks. Maybe this is why no relationship ever lasts… Anyway, I suppose it won't tempt fate to name her-"_

A knock came at the door. Harry sighed with frustration.

"Just as we actually get to the good bits…" muttered Ron. "Come in!" he called, and Hermione breezed into the room.

"What're you reading?" she asked suspiciously. Here we go, thought Ron. He told her, anticipating the inevitable outburst, which naturally came with unrestrained gusto.

"How dare you read someone's diary?" she screeched, and was off, ranting and raving for what seemed like hours. Ron guessed she was going to have something up her sleeve, and watched in misery as she performed the padlock charm on Malfoy's diary. Hermione, in her typical way, soon realised who it belonged to, and Ron could have been wrong, but he could have sworn he saw a jolt of something in her eyes, just for a second. He was probably just imagining things…

Hermione flounced to the door. "I expect you're wondering where Dean Thomas is," she said, grinning slyly. That was a point, thought Ron. Where was he? Had he actually come back to the dorm last night? Maybe he just got up early…

Hermione twirled a lock of hair on her finger petulantly. "He's in bed with Lavender Brown, in my dormitory." And she was gone, before the magnitude of this statement hit either Ron or Harry. They stared at each other. 

"Dean… Dean scored last night?" stuttered Harry. "Wha-, how did he… what the?"

"Him and Lavender have only been going out a few weeks, that's all…"

At that moment Seamus came back from breakfast, and they regaled him of their findings, all thoughts of Malfoy's mystery love forgotten.

"Always said that Lavender was a bit of a slapper!" remarked Seamus cruelly, and all three boys chortled merrily. 

*

Later in the day, when Harry and Ron had finally had breakfast and got showered and dressed, and Dean returned to their dormitory and revealed the less exciting truth, Ron was lying on his bed, playing chess with himself. He was attempting to instruct both sets of chessmen, a rather pointless exercise, but he was terribly bored.

What is the point of all this? He suddenly wondered to himself. Constantly living a lie? Would it be so bad if he were to come out? He had a fair idea of how the other boys would react. The worst insult you could call someone was "gay", for no real reason that Ron could think of. Most of his friends would probably disown him… It would probably be far easier if he was a girl, who was gay. Girls always seemed more accepting of things like that, and society in general seemed to have less of a problem with lesbianism. Girls, after all, were always hugging each other and kissing. It was far more acceptable for females to have close contact with each other. There was far more of a taboo about two men kissing. And there was the whole issue of 'manliness'. Being masculine was uppermost in priorities, Ron thought dryly. Heaven forbid you should come across as effeminate. 

He sighed, and turned over on his bed, staring up at the cream-coloured ceiling. What would his family think? His mother… Gay men were always supposed to be close to their mothers, and he wasn't. Mind you, gay men were supposed to be about five foot tall, with long eyelashes and finger nails, and a high, camp voice. There were such prejudices, he realised. And for most of his life, he had been quite happy to go along with them. Calling short boys, that happened to be no good at Quidditch 'queer'. Neville, being a prime example. 

Of course, looks had nothing to do with your sexuality. It was something you were born with, something that came from inside. He had tried for so long, and so hard to force himself to be attracted to girls. It wasn't for lack of trying. No-one in their right mind would _wish_ to be gay. It caused no end of problems…

He thought of his brothers. The twins, with their endless streams of girlfriends all through Hogwarts, and now Fred with his long-term girlfriend Anna Larkin and George leading a bachelor lifestyle in his 'shag pad'. Fred had met Anna at work, and they had been going out for nearly two years now. George favoured the 'love 'em and leave 'em' approach. Both twins were typical, red-blooded males. How Ron longed to be just the same. 

Bill was married to Carole, and they had a tiny son called Henry. Charlie had settled down with his long-term girlfriend Sam, who was now six-months pregnant. Even Ginny had a boyfriend, for heaven's sake! It seemed that his entire family was conspiring to show him up, with their unrelenting straightness.

The door suddenly burst open, and Harry collapsed onto his bed, drenched to his skin.

"What happened to you?" said Ron, peering at him between the heavy velvet drapes that cloaked his bed. 

"Don't ask," groaned Harry, his voice muffled in the duvet. "I had a Quidditch practice…"

Ron peered at the window, watching the heavy rain dashing against the glass pane. "How did it go?" he asked.

"Apart from wetly?" said Harry, wiping wet strands of hair out of his eyes. "Well, I wish I'd never taken on Andrew Kipling from the fifth year as Keeper. He's a liability. Not only can he not guard the goal to save his life, but he seems petrified of the Quaffle, and zooms _away_ from the goal whenever it comes near! God, he's a right little pouf sometimes… I'm going to have a shower."

Ron watched Harry leap across his bed, and stride into the bathroom, grabbing his towel en route. He couldn't believe what he'd just heard. Harry had called that little fifth year sod a pouf, as a kind of insult. He'd heard plenty of boys say it before, but this was _Harry_. He was as homophobic as the rest of them. Ron shook his head, trying desperately to rid the hot stinging in his eyes. How puerile. Crying, at _his_ age! He really was a typical gay, a right Nancy boy.

How could they all be so bloody cruel? Sexuality wasn't dictated by the way you dress, or how tall you were, or if you were any good at sport, for heaven's sake! It was a deeper, abstract path that you took, through no choice of your own. It was probably set at conception, a particular gene pool, or slightly different setting in the hormones or the part of the brain concerned with attraction. He didn't know. His knowledge of Biology was very limited, and of course, no-one in the world had been able to prove conclusively… why. All I know is, he thought fervently, I did not chose to be this way. This way chose me. And there's nothing I can do about it.

*

It was the middle of the night, and Ron was having an attack of insomnia. Recently, this had been an increasingly common occurrence, although of course that fact made it no less frustrating; lying there, tossing and turning, sweating through the endless inky nights.

Ron sighed heavily, and pushed himself up on his pillows, wiping the perspiration off his brow. He yanked at the thick, lustrous velvet curtains that encased his bed like a shroud. Harry had forgotten to draw his curtains across, as he had simply fallen into bed and gone straight to sleep, worn out from the Quidditch practice. 

Ron got labouriously out of his bed, and stole silently across the carpeted room, to Harry's bedside. He knelt by his sleeping friend's side, and looked at him, for several minutes. 

Harry's glasses were still on his face, Harry having been too exhausted to even take them off when he got into bed before he fell asleep. They had slipped right down to the end of his nose, and Ron carefully slipped the glasses above his ears, and placed them on Harry's bedside table. 

Ron gazed at him, the seventeen-year-old adolescent who still looked like a tiny angelic boy when he was asleep. Harry's messy hair stood up in tufts around his heart-shaped face, his pink lips slightly parted as he breathed deeply, his black eyelashes resting on his skin. Ron couldn't help himself; his hand moved forwards before he had time to think, and he swept a gentle finger against Harry's warm, smooth skin, brushing the fringe of hair away from Harry's eyes. His eyelids slowly fluttered open.

"Mmm…?" he moaned blearily, trying to focus without his glasses. "Ron? It's the middle of the n-"

"Shh," said Ron firmly. "You're having a dream. Just go back to sleep." 

Surprisingly, Harry sleepily obeyed without objection, and turned his face into his pillow. Low snores a few minutes later let Ron know that it was safe to go back to bed, which he did.

Ron snuggled down in the cover, feeling extraordinarily tired. He yawned, and shut his eyes. I hope that Harry won't remember that in the morning, he thought. He could… could…

Ron never finished his thought, because when he finally finished trying, he went straight to sleep.

*

Ron picked at his plate of scrambled egg and bacon. Nibbling half-heartedly at the toast dripping with golden butter, he glanced around the table. Hermione _still_ hadn't come down. It wasn't like her to be late for breakfast, he thought. She was always so punctual, even on a Monday morning…

He glanced at Harry, who was sitting opposite him, attacking a bowl of porridge with gusto. He looked up at Ron.

"You've got Transfiguration, right?" he asked. Ron nodded.

"Defense Against the Dark Arts?" he enquired. Harry also nodded. 

"Should be good…" he was saying. "We're going to be practicing deflecting the Imperius curse onto the…"

Ron gave up listening, and just let his thoughts twirl themselves into one thick chocolate coating of his mind. Gazing into those green, green eyes, he seemed to lose himself totally…

"Ron!" he heard Harry snap. "At least attempt to look interested in what I'm telling you!" He angrily pushed the half-finished bowl of porridge away, and strode across the hall, in the direction of the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. 

Well done, Ron, he thought wretchedly, cursing himself for his idiocy. He too stood up, cramming the last of the toast in his mouth. Walking slowly to the Transfiguration room, dully dragging his ripped cord bag behind him, he sighed at the thought of another lesson with Professor McGonagall. 

Moodily, he flopped down in the back row, and pulled out his books hap-hazardly onto the pine desk. Ron still hadn't quite got used to the system of the sixth and seventh years. Unlike at OWL level, they had had to choose four subjects to do for their NEWTs (apart from Hermione, who of course was doing five). He and Harry were both doing the same subjects; Transfiguration, Herbology, Defense Against the Dark Arts and Care of Magical Creatures, but because the classes were of much smaller groups, they were only time-tabled together for Herbology. In Transfiguration, he was with Dean and Neville, but of course it wasn't the same. 

Ron waved mutely as Neville and Dean clumped over to join him at the back of the class. They were half-way through a mind-bogglingly boring lesson, turning small green pond frogs into their namesake in chocolate, when Ron noticed something strange. Malfoy wasn't in the room. He, unfortunately for Ron, was in the same group for that lesson, and usually made it his aim to make the Gryffindors' lives a living hell. But today, he wasn't there…

Ron stretched his brain. Malfoy certainly wasn't ill - he'd seen him up and about at the party on Saturday night. Probably bunking, he decided. Even so, it wasn't like him…

The day dragged by, filled with melting chocolate frogs, and squeaky chalk on the blackboards. Today was as cold as the previous week had been, and Ron shivered in his thread-bare black robe. At two o'clock, he finally escaped to his dorm room, thankful for the blessing of free periods.

Of course, he thought to himself as he slowly rounded the many staircases, strictly speaking seventh years should spend their free periods working in the library, but the teachers tended to turn a bit of a blind eye. Ron collapsed on his four-poster, breathing heavily. He dropped his bag onto the floor with a thud, and lay back on the pillows, sweating, despite the cold, his heart hammering.

"Bad day?" asked Harry, breezing into the room a second later. Ron sat up on the bed.

"Look, Harry," he started. "About earlier, I-"

"Forget it, Ron," said Harry. "I was just in a bad mood, I shouldn't have snapped at you." he came and sat down next to Ron on his bed. "Bad day?" he repeated. Ron sighed.

"No, nothing in particular," he replied non-comitally. "How was yours?"

"Oh, boring as usual," replied Harry airily, and Ron stared at him. He got the feeling that he wasn't the only one trying to hide something. Harry suddenly grinned.

"We really have to get you fixed up with someone, bachelor boy!" he said, laughing. "You've never had a proper girlfriend…"

Ron looked down at his lap, and to his horror, felt tears prick at his eyes. No! he thought, horrified, cryingat my age! But it was too late.

"Ron?" said Harry, trying to peer up at his face. "Ron? Are you… _crying_?" He slipped a comforting arm around Ron's back, and squeezed him. "What is it?"

Ron froze when he felt Harry slip his arm around him, and felt his face burn red. And then, it was as though he took leave of his senses. All those years of carefully concealing the truth, of pretending and lying… All thoughts in his mind flew away in an instant, and before he could stop himself, he bent forward quickly. And kissed Harry.

It was as though all his life, his feelings had been wound up and wound up, like an elastic band. And now, just as the elastic had been pulled so tightly and so thinly that he nearly fainted from the pressure, the elastic snapped. And a waterfall torrent of emotions showered him, cloaking him, in the most incredible release he had ever experienced. Ron felt like he was flying. All of this happened in an instant, and then, he fell back to earth from considerable height. Harry pulled sharply away.

Ron had never seen him carrying such a mix of negative emotions. The most obvious one was shock; Harry's eyes were wide and staring, and his mouth was slightly open. He looked horrified. And then, in a split second, the look changed to disgust. Harry's lips curled in a look of pure revolt. He stared at Ron for seemed like years, and then leapt shakily to his feet. Harry shot Ron one last look of what could only be described as hate, and bolted out of the door.

Ron put his head in his hands. The elastic band had snapped, taking with it any sense of stability in his life. All Ron could see behind closed eyelids was miles of inky blackness, cracked into a terrible mosaic of broken pieces. The pieces of his life.

"What have I done?' he wailed out loud. He couldn't think of anything worse than this. There simply was no way that he could have made a bigger mess of the situation. And then…

Ron's head shot up as he heard the door close.

"Harry?" he said, the words out of his mouth before he could stop them. It wasn't Harry. It wasn't one of the other Gryffindors. It was Malfoy.

To be continued…


	4. Harry

The Long and Winding Road - Part Four

__

Oh Monday morning, you gave me no warning, of what was to be…

Mamas and the Papas

Harry

He collapsed in one of the squashy chairs in the common room. Mercifully, it was deserted, mainly because most people were at lessons, apart from the few seventh years who had a free period and Harry assumed that they would be in the library working, as in theory he should be.

Harry was shaking all over, and he struggled to get his breathing down to its normal rate. Why the _hell_ had Ron done that? He wasn't… he _couldn't_ be… But there was no other explanation. Ron - gay? It was ludicrous, inconceivable… so plainly obvious that Harry couldn't believe he hadn't realised before. 

He put his head in his hands, thinking hard. Ron had never had a proper girlfriend, and though had always seemed jealous when Harry and Hermione were going out the year before, he had made no move to ask anyone out himself. Harry had always had a sneaking suspicion that Ron secretly fancied Hermione, but now… Oh God.

Ron fancied _him_, perhaps was even in love with him. Harry moaned out loud, and rubbed at his temples, attempting to dislodge the headache that was pounding at his skull. He had always, always thought of himself as someone who was liberal-minded, happy to accept people of all race and creed. If someone called him a racist, well. He would be unthinkably angry. But that was all that gay people were; a minority group. To discriminate against them, well it was just as bad as calling a black person a nigger, or an Asian person a Paki. No self-respecting person nowadays would say such things, but so many of his classmates used gay as an insult of the highest degree. He could hear their voices in his mind.

"You're so gay!"

"This is such a gay subject, I hate it."

What must Ron have been going through all this time? he thought miserably. And yet… there was something, some part of him that was revolted with Ron, no matter how much he tried to squash the feeling. That was a terrible attitude to have…

Ron had kissed him. Harry fought in vain with the two equally strong emotions; empathy for his best friend, having to hide this huge secret all this time from everyone, and also his over-riding feeling of disgust. Ron, gay? It didn't seem possible. And why on earth had he just kissed him like that, out of the blue? _Why_, had he not felt able to tell Harry? They were meant to be best friends, that told each other everything. He would have understood…

Or would I? Harry thought. He probably knew that I'd react like this, horrified and dis- Oh God. What was it that I'd said yesterday? About Andrew Kipling? I called him a pouf, for not being able to play Quidditch. 

Harry jumped right of his seat, a cold sweat breaking out on his forehead. I called him a pouf. How the hell must that have made Ron feel?

"Shit," he said under his breath. "No wonder he didn't confide in me; he thought I was as homophobic as the rest of the boys. And he was right."

Harry strode over to the corner of the common room, where a large Georgian teak chest stood, filled with spare parchment and quills, for everyone's use. His hand shaking, he scrawled out a note on a scrap of parchment.

__

Dear Sirius, it read

__

I need your advice about something. I have just discovered that Ron is gay, in the worst way possible. He tried to kiss me, and I was so shocked that I ran away. I just don't know what-

Harry looked up, as he heard the door open. 

"Hi Harry!" came a cherry voice, and Harry quickly stuffed the parchment in his robe pocket.

"Hullo, Colin," he sighed.

*

Three days later, and Harry and Ron had not spoken once. This was partly because Herbology, the only lesson where they were time-tabled together, was on Thursdays and Fridays only. At meal-times, Ron seemed to either come down to the Great Hall to eat either very early, or very late, thus avoiding the others altogether. When Harry came up to the dorm room at night, Ron was already in bed, with his velvet hangings pulled firmly around his bed, and when Harry awoke in the mornings, Ron was already in the shower. When they did cross paths, Harry could have sworn that Ron's eyes always seemed to be red, but his expression told otherwise. It was as though Ron had shut down a barrier from everyone else; he was wearing a mask, lest his true feelings should ever be seen again. 

Harry desperately wanted to talk to Ron, but his pride was too great. Besides, he felt he deserved at least an explanation first. It was one of those strange situations were neither party thinks that they should have to apologise at all, and so it drags on for far longer than it should do. 

And to top it all, Harry couldn't understand what had got into Hermione. She barely talked any more, and it seemed that every time he looked her way, she was staring moonily into space. Harry despaired.

The Thursday morning Herbology lesson was uncomfortable, to say the least. Thankfully, Professor Sprout did not pair Harry and Ron together, so it could have been a lot worse. 

As Harry and Justin Finch-Fletchly pruned Money bushes (they grew gold Galleons in the right conditions), Harry tried not to catch Ron's eyes, who was working across the room with Neville. Typically, Neville had not caught on to the rift between Harry and Ron, although of course Dean and Seamus spotted it immediately, and were convinced that it was because both of them wanted to go out with Hermione. Harry was sick to the back teeth of their constant ribbing, made worse by the irony of it all. If only it were that simple…

"Excellent!" came the booming voice of Professor Sprout, rushing over to their bench. A single gold galleon had appeared suddenly with a pop, nestling amongst the round, green leaves. "Well done, Potter, Finch-Fletchly. Five points for Gryffindor and Hufflepuff."

Justin smiled at Harry. "Good one," he said. "I can never get quite the right ratio balance of sunlight to Aurum drops," he said. Harry put the small gold Aurum bottle down on the bench, and was about to say that it was a fluke, when Justin opened his mouth again.

"So is it true then? You and Ron, having a scrap over Hermione?"

"No," said Harry slowly. "It was just a silly argument, blown out of all proportion…"

"Really?" said Justin, sounding disappointed. "Well, girls are usually at the bottom of these things. I mean, Hermione's grown into quite a looker, these days, hasn't she? You never would have thought it from the way she used to be…"

Harry let that one pass, too tired of arguing. 

"…And, well," said Justin, laughing in his slightly horsey, upper-class manner, "I had a bit of an embarrassment myself the other day. Were you at the party last Saturday? Well, I tried chatting up Hannah-" He pointed across the room to were Ron and Hannah Abbott were engrossed with their money plant. "And while we were kissing, I put my hand down her top. I mean, I am a chap, and I thought girls liked that kind of thing! But she just leapt up and started shouting at me. My theory is that she's a dyke, but then you never would have thought it from looking at her, eh? I thought they all had shaved heads..."

Harry reeled. "A dyke?" he said quietly.

"Yeah, well I mean I can't think of any other explanation. Why else would she have pushed me off?"

"Justin," Harry growled softly. "You're seventeen, and you obviously have no idea how to treat women. Not all girls want to be groped when they've just been kissed for the first time by someone. And if you're kidding yourself that you did it for _her_, then get a grip on your hormones, and take a cold shower. I can't believe that because she wasn't willing to prostitute herself, you think that she's homosexual, or a dyke, as you so charmingly call it. And as for your prejudices…"

Thankfully, at that very second the bell signaling the end of the lesson rang, before Harry could say any more, or Justin could make a reply. Instead, his mouth still hanging open in a stupid kind of way, Justin walked over to his gaggle of Hufflepuff friends, and they walked out of the room, muttering darkly.

Christ, thought Harry. Where did all that come from? He strangely felt a lot lighter, and walked out of the room. He had another free period next, and though he had several essays due in very soon, he threw caution to the wind, and headed for the common room.

"Pepper Imps," said Harry dully to the Fat Lady, and stepped through the portrait hole. Hermione was sitting in one of the armchairs, staring broodingly into the fire. She turned around to face Harry as she heard him come in.

"Hi, Hermione," Harry said, and flopped into the chair next to hers. "Haven't you got a free period now?"

"Well, obviously, otherwise I'd be in a lesson," she said seriously.

"Yes, I know, but you always spend your frees in the library, like a good little pupil," he said sardonically. 

"What's got into you?' she snapped. "People can have a bit of a rest, can't they? Free country, and all that… You're looking a bit lack-luster these days. Got a problem?"

Harry looked at Hermione properly. She had never looked less lack-luster; with shiny, swingy hair, glowing skin and eyes. She looked very happy suddenly. Much happier than she had for a long time, including, he realised with a jolt, when she and I were going out. He avoided the question.

"In love, or something?" he attempted to joke. 

"Not quite," she muttered. 

"What's that meant to mean?"

Hermione sighed. "I hadn't planned to tell you yet," she said quietly.

"Tell me… what?"

"Would you just let me finish my sentence? Look, Harry, I know you're not going to like this, but, well… as they say, it is my life, my choice. I'm going out with someone."

"That's great," said Harry, mentally running through all the boys he could think of. Dean? No - Lavender. Seamus?! Surely not. Neville, Justin, Colin? No, no, no.

"Harry," said Hermione, taking his hand. "Please don't be angry with me, and before you say anything, let me explain, okay? I'm going out with Draco Malfoy."

For the second time that day, Harry reeled. He heard himself say, "Oh. Right."

Hermione smiled nervously. "Are you not… angry?" she asked tentatively. "I was so sure you would be. Mind you, it was Ron who kicked up the fuss when I went with Viktor Krum to the Yule Ball… You were always fine. But then, this is Draco we're talking about…" 

Harry felt his mind spin. Hermione… and Malfoy. Malfoy and Hermione. He conjured up a hideous mental image of the two of the kissing… It just didn't fit. Like two jigsaw pieces from entirely different puzzles, trying to ram with together just would not work. But then, what did he know? Harry thought. He thought that Ron was straight, and look where that got him.

"I know it seems unlikely," Hermione was saying, "and I thought I hated him as much as you and Ron. But beneath the sarky comments, and the bravado, there's a real person waiting to be drawn out. And he's only ever been out with brainless bimbos like Pansy before now. I think that we'll make each other happy. Harry?"

Harry took Hermione's hands, and cupped them in his own. "I hope it works out for you," he said sincerely, and kissed her quickly on the cheek. "If you'll excuse me…" He stood up.

"Thank you, Harry," said Hermione. "You don't know how much it means."

Harry headed quickly up the stairs to his dormitory. He knew that Ron, Neville and Dean had Transfiguration on a Thursday afternoon, and Seamus had Arithmancy, so he could finally get some peace. Flopping down on his bed, Harry thought hard. The whole world seemed to going mad. First Ron, coming out, and now Hermione, going out with _Malfoy_! It was as though the past six and a half years had been a total dream, and they were in fact living in an alternate universe, a land of topsy-turvy morals and beliefs. 

He sighed, and leaned over to pick up the flame-coloured hat that Ron must have dropped on the floor that morning. It was the Chudley Cannons hat, that Harry had given Ron for Christmas in the fourth year. 

Harry sniffed the orange wool. It smelt overwhelmingly of Ron. Not in a nasty way at all, but everyone has their own smell, and it made Harry feel close to tears. It seemed that he and Ron would never have the same closeness that they'd had before. Why did this have to happen? Why couldn't Ron just be straight? 

Harry lay back on his pillows, his eyelashes dragging down onto his cheeks. He was so exhausted; having had three nights that were practically sleepless. Harry gave in, and shut his eyes…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Oh, Draco…" came Hermione's soft voice. "Ohhhh." 

The picture came into focus. Hermione, her hair nearly waist-long, was wearing a simple white cotton dress, the fluidity accentuating her curves. She was sitting in the middle of a meadow, cross-legged in the long verdant grass, surrounded by wild red poppies and tangles of daisies and buttercups. Malfoy was sitting next to her, kissing her, his hands roaming all over her body. The image seemed to zoom in, and the tiny forget-me-nots were visible, tangled in Hermione's long hair. Harry could see the slim curve of her breastbone, and Malfoy's hungry, clambering hands exploring her through the white cotton. The image suddenly melted away, and Harry could see Ron, dressed in a rather frou-frou outfit, a pale rose suit and white ruffled Galliano shirt. He appeared to be making a cake, and was making remarks to someone Harry couldn't see. 

"Oh, _darling_," said Ron, flipping his wrist to make a camp hand gesture, and giggling coquettishly. The other person in the kitchen came into view. It was Harry. He was wearing nothing but a sarong, and his left nipple was pierced with a silver ring. The dream-Harry got up, and came up to Ron. He cupped Ron's chin in his hand, and pulled his face down to… kiss him. Immediately, the scene changed again.

It was Hermione; an older Hermione. Her hair was cut in a classic, shoulder-length style, perfectly coifed. A tiny girl was sitting by her feet, playing with a toy train. Hermione was stroking her very pregnant stomach, and Harry saw a white-gold ring on her wedding finger. Then, Malfoy became visible, standing just behind her, looking exceedingly smart in a business suit, with a silver briefcase in one hand, and a filofax in the other. He bent down, and kissed Hermione tenderly on the cheek. Then, the image of Harry kissing Ron floated across the image of Malfoy kissing Hermione, and the two merged and shifted together.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Harry sat straight up in bed, his brow sticky with perspiration. "Shit," he said out-loud. And then, as if realising it for the first time, his eyes widened. "Hermione's going out with _Malfoy_!" he spat. Harry felt dirty and disgusted, with both Ron and Hermione. Absent-mindedly, he heard the bell go, signaling the end of the last lesson. 

Why is my life spiraling out of control like this? he wondered desperately. Only last week, he was enjoying the last year at Hogwarts, like everyone else, and now…

There was the sound of thundering feet on the stairs, and Ron and Dean burst into the room, laughing their heads off about something.

"Hi, Harry," said Ron happily, as though the last three days had not happened at all. 

What? screamed Harry inwardly. Why is he acting so normally, after what he's done to me?

"Don't even say it, Ron!" he yelled, uncharacteristically. "You can't just wipe out the past, you know!" He jumped up from the bed, and strode to the door. "Or your feelings!"

Ron tried to grab Harry's arm, looking stricken. "Harry!" he cried. "I'm-"

"Don't touch me," said Harry, shrugging Ron off. "You're PATHETIC!" He ran out of the door, slamming it behind him, and ran down the many corridors, until his lungs screamed for air. Harry slumped down in a small, dusty corner, behind a wall-hanging. He was breathing quickly, gasping dryly, unable to settle his heart. The wail of misery that had been trapped in him for the past three days suddenly burst out, and he sobbed wretchedly into his black robes. 

What have I done? he wondered. How could I hurt Ron like that? And he buried his face in his knees, his shoulders shaking uncontrollably. 

*

Harry crept along the corridor, his head down, his apology on the tip of his tongue. It was nightfall, and he'd been walking around the Hogwarts grounds for hours, trying to clear his head. It had finally stopped snowing, but there was still a strong breeze, and a wild wind-whipped rosy glow was visible on Harry's cheeks. 

Gently, he pushed open the door, and nearly had a heart-attack. There was someone sitting on Ron's bed, and it wasn't Ron. It wasn't another Gryffindor pupil. It was Professor McGonagall.

Harry stepped gingerly over the threshold, and looked around. Dean, Seamus and Neville were all sitting on their respective beds, looking extremely uncomfortable. Ron wasn't to be seen.

Professor McGonagall jumped to her feet. "Potter!" she exclaimed, wringing her hands. "Thank God! Where on earth have you been?"

Harry involuntarily took a step backward. What was the problem? "I - I've only been out for a couple of hours, Professor," he said, surprised to find his voice shaking a little. "Why? What's the matter?"

McGonagall stood back, and looked at the floor. "Potter," she said. "Do you know where Ron Weasley has gone?"

"Gone?" Harry echoed, his mouth hanging open. "What?" 

"Mr. Thomas here tells me that you and Ron had a fight, is that correct?"

Harry shrugged helplessly. "I wouldn't call it a fight, exactly, or even an argument. I just said a few things I shouldn't have… _why_?"

McGonagall sighed, as though she was carrying the world upon her shoulders. "Mr. Weasley has gone missing, Potter."

Dean spoke up. "When you went out of the dorm, Ron picked up his cloak, and ran out too. I thought that he was following you, but he must have gone the other way down the corridor…"

"Hagrid spotted Weasley running out of the school gate, Potter," said McGonagall, her dark eyes flashing worriedly. "He called him back, but either Weasley ignored him, or he didn't hear."

Harry sank down on his bed, feeling slightly dizzy. 

"We were worried that something had happened to you, Potter," said McGonagall sagely. 

"I just went for a walk in the grounds for a while," said Harry. "That's all. Are there people looking for Ron?"

"Professor Dumbledore's onto it, Potter," said McGonagall. "I'll let you know if we hear anything." She swept out of the dormitory. Harry turned to look at the other three. 

"Don't worry, Harry," said Seamus. "Ron'll come back. He just needed a bit of cooling off time."

Harry looked down at his feet, feeling inexplicable dread. "I don't think he will, somehow."

Seamus, Dean and Neville exchanged worried glances. 

"Um, do you want a game of Snap, anyone?" asked Neville, pulling his battered pack out of his back pocket. They all played a few rounds, but no-one's heart was in it. Harry was thankful that none of the other boys questioned him about what he and Ron had been arguing about, and guessed that they just assumed it _was_ a squabble over Hermione… That reminded him of the dream, and he flinched. Hermione, going out with Malfoy… How could he ever have given it his blessing?

An hour or two passed, and it was growing very late. None of the boys wanted to go to bed, however, they were too worked up. Suddenly, the door burst open. Professor McGonagall walked in again.

"Potter," she said quietly, and Harry jumped to his feet. "Weasley's been found…" Her voice tailed off into nothing.

"Where… where is he?" asked Harry desperately. 

"He…um. Potter, Weasley tried to drown himself, down at the south coast. It seems that he apparated down to Littlehampton, and swam far out to sea. He stopped swimming purposefully, and sank. He nearly died, but a fishing boat went near, thank heaven, and saw his cloak, which had floated to the surface. He's been pulled out, and is being brought back to Hogwarts at this second…"

Harry felt as though he'd been punched in the stomach. "Ron's going to be okay, though, isn't he?" he said desperately.

"Potter," said McGonagall grimly. "Weasley was unconscious under water, for how long we do not know. There is a chance that he won't wake up, and a greater chance that if he does, he will have severe brain damage."

To be continued…

A/N: Thank you to all my lovely reviewers, you've restored my faith in humankind. To flamers; get a life, you homophobics. Don't do a Harry. Don't alienate people for their sexuality. Talia xx


	5. Hermione / Draco

The Long and Winding Road - Part Five

__

Close your eyes, give me your hand, do you feel my heart beating? Do you feel the same, am I only dreaming?

Debbie Gibson, 1988

Hermione

She was attempting to concentrate on her Arithmancy homework, but Draco hand his hands floating lightly on her waist, and for once her mind was not entirely on the matter in hand. 

"I've really got to finish this essay," she muttered, not really cross despite herself. Hermione turned to look at Draco, who grinned seductively. "Besides," she tried desperately, "I'm sure you've got a lot of work to do too…"

Draco leant to whisper in her ear. "Loads of it," he said, barely audibly. 

Hermione dropped her quill in exasperation, and turned properly in her chair to face him. 

"I'm not disturbing you, am I?" Draco asked innocently. He practically batted those blonde eyelashes. Hermione sighed heavily, and picked up her quill again. Draco neatly whipped it from her grasp, and started to doodle up her arm, in Flourish and Blott's finest lilac Indian ink. 

"_Draco_!" Hermione shrieked, causing several seventh years to turn their way and snigger. Hermione quickly licked her finger, and rubbed the ink off of her skin.

"Is that how you charm all your girls?" she asked exasperatedly. Draco merely raised one perfect blonde eyebrow in response. He started to play with her hair, plaiting tiny strands, and knotting the ends. Hermione shut her book with a bang.

"Finished," she muttered. "Just. No thanks to you."

"Good!" Draco exclaimed, and encircled her waist with his arms. "Can we have fun now?"

Hermione was just about to reply, when she felt Draco put one of his arms under her thighs. "Hey!" she exclaimed. "Whatcha-?"

Draco laughed, and lifted her right out of the chair, into his arms. Hermione shrieked, and flailed wildly. The gaggle of first years in the corner of the common room burst into unrestrained giggles. 

"Pick up your bag," said Draco, and Hermione bent an arm over and grabbed it from the chair. 

"Draco!" Hermione hissed from the corner of her mouth, "This is really embarrassing!"

Draco strode to the door effortlessly, as thought Hermione weighed nothing. He turned to the first years as they reached the door.

"Enjoy your homework, ladies!" he called, and blew them a kiss. Hermione and Draco heard the explosion of girlish giggles as they shut the door after them.

Hermione looked up at Draco's face. "You can put me down now, Casanova," she remarked. "You've impressed the little kiddiwinks." 

Draco took on a very ostentatious look. "You think so little of me, dear Hermione!" And he carried her up all the stairs to her dorm room.

"Aah!" Hermione shrieked, as Draco dropped her down on her four-poster bed. The dormitory room was fortunately empty. Draco climbed onto the bed himself.

"So," he muttered in his usual seductive way. "How are we feeling today?"

Hermione looked at him shrewdly, a crooked smile on her face. "Your little pornographic ways might work with other girls, Draco darling," she said. "But not with me."

Draco merely smiled graciously. "What a pity," he whispered. Draco suddenly sat up. "Have you told Potter and Weasley, yet?" he asked, a flicker of annoyance passing over his eyes. 

"Harry and Ron," Hermione reprimanded. 

"Yeah, them."

Hermione sighed, and looked at her lap. "I told Harry today," she said. "During my double free."

"Well? How did he take it?" Draco snapped immediately. 

Hermione put her head on one side, and observed Draco shrewdly. "Why all the sudden interest?" she asked suspiciously.

Draco thought for a minute. "I like the way my face looks," he replied cockily. 

Hermione grinned, and stroked his hair. She pushed him down onto the soft cotton pillows, and was just leaning in, her eyes closed…

BAM! The door burst open with such force that it whacked right against the wall with a tremendous bang. Hermione's head shot up, and she nearly rolled off the bed. Draco grabbed hold of her robes to stop her falling, and they both sat up, looking towards the doorway in annoyance.

Draco cleared his throat in slight embarrassment. "I'll… see you tomorrow, Hermione," he said, and bolted out of the door. Hermione got stiffly up from the bed, and walked over to the doorway.

"Lavender! What on earth is it?" she cried. A crumbled, bent figure swayed brokenly in the lamplight. Lavender's mascara had run in rivulets down her face, and her eyes were bloodshot and full of tears yet to be spilt. 

"Lavender!" Hermione repeated. She gently took the other girl's arm, and led her over to her own bed, where she firmly sat her down on the somewhat rumpled bedclothes. A tear leaked from the corner of Lavender's eye, and she blinked hard, sniffing messily. Hermione reached over to her bedside table, and plucked a tissue from the box. She handed it silently to Lavender, who blew her nose and then scrumpled it into a ball with shaky fingers. 

Lavender sniffed hard several times in succession, and breathed raggedly. Hermione sensed that she didn't trust herself to speak yet, for fear of breaking down again. She took Lavender's icy-cold hand in her own, and squeezed it. She had a feeling that whatever it was, it was something connected with Dean. 

Lavender took a deep, shuddering sigh, and wiped her eyes. She turned to face Hermione, and opened her mouth, on the verge of saying something. Hermione willed her with her eyes, but Lavender merely became teary again, and rocked backwards and forwards on the bed. She thrust her hand into the pocket of her jeans that she was wearing under her pink robes. Hermione watched her draw out her wand. Lavender finally spoke, in a tiny, hoarse-sounding voice.

"Watch this," she whispered, and, inexplicably, pointed the wand at Hermione's stomach. Hermione stared at Lavender apprehensively as she muttered the words, " Graviditas Experimentum." She did not recognise the charm, which worried her.

Nothing happened for a second, and then suddenly a dark blue, sparkly cloud blossomed into the air, as though it was being sucked out of her belly button. The cloud whirled into a perfect blue orb, and it glittered and spangled. The orb suddenly emitted a single fluting note, like that from a panpipe. "Nihil," sang a voice, seemingly from inside the orb.

"Nothing," Hermione muttered; she had a basic knowledge of Latin. "Lavender - what in the world was that?"

Lavender had stopped crying; she merely looked resigned to some terrible fate. She did not reply, and pointed her wand at her own stomach instead. Hermione suddenly had a fleeting, terrible thought. She brushed it away. Surely not, surely even Lavender wouldn't be so stupid…

"Graviditas Experimentum," said Lavender. There was a moment's pause, and then, as before, a sparkling Prussian blue ball of light formed between them. But then, gradually, it started to change. The blue began to merge into pinkish-gold light, and the orb radiated heat like the warmth of the sun. A scale of panpipe notes burst forth, much louder than the single note that Hermione's orb had produced. Hermione suddenly peered forward, she thought she could see something forming in the sphere of misty light. A tiny form was encased in the pink sheen. She could not make out what it was. Then, the orb sang. This time, it did not say Nihil.

"Infans!" chirped the voice, in a warm, happy tone.

"Oh my God," said Hermione, staring in horror at Lavender. "You're… you're _pregnant_!"

Lavender broke down again. "Her-mioneee," she wailed. "I don't know what to do!"

Hermione rubbed her eyes with her hands, feeling very tired. "Lavender," she said, struggling not to throttle the girl. "How the hell did you let this happen? Didn't you… weren't you…?"

"Using protection?" finished Lavender for her. She let out a shuddering sigh, and splodged at her mascara-streaked cheeks with a tissue. "We were both drunk; I hardly remember what it was like. I was hardly in a fit state to think clearly; to think of the getting the condoms from my bag…" She wept a little, sniffing quietly. 

"Was this the night of the party?" Hermione interjected suddenly, looking suspicious. Lavender looked up at her, then back down at her lap. She nodded quickly.

"Not in our dorm?" Hermione said, restraining her automatic feeling of disgust. "While the rest of us were sleeping?"

Lavender laughed suddenly. "You've never had sex, have you Hermione?"

"You say it like it's a bad thing, Lavender," came the muttered reply. "And look where having sex has got _you_."

"No. I meant… Oh, never mind. Believe me, we would have woken you up, if it had been in our dorm room." Hermione suppressed a shudder at these words. 

"So where was it then?"

Lavender looked pensive for a moment. "In the Gryffindor common room… I think."

Hermione sighed deeply. "You can't even remember properly?" she muttered rhetorically. "That's pathetic, Lavender."

"I know." Lavender stood up, and walked over to the washbasin in the corner of the room. Scrubbing at her cheeks with a flannel, she added, "I never would have chosen for it to be this way."

"What girl would?" asked Hermione, turning away.

*

"Draco!" Hermione exclaimed. "For the hundredth time, I'm not going to tell you! It's private, and it's Lavender's business!"

"Ah, go on, Hermione," Draco wheedled, most unlike himself. "I bet it's really juicy gossip!"

"Not for your ears, though," she said, smirking. "I never you were such a grapeviner, Draco." Hermione pulled him down onto the bed. "Now," she breathed. "Where were we?"

There came a knock at the door. Draco fell back onto the pillows in frustration. "Tell the stupid girl to go and angst with some other friend," he snapped. "If I can't know, then I don't want to have to be interrupted _again_."

Hermione shook her head, and walked towards the door. "Professor McGonagall!" she exclaimed, as she opened the door, her mouth falling open in surprise. "I- we… Draco came to um… Get some help with his Potions homework. Yes." She said all of this very fast, and McGonagall peered at her over her silver-framed glasses. 

"Be that as it may, Hermione," she said, giving both of them a very skeptical look, "I hardly need remind you of the unwritten rule at all boarding schools. Boys do _not_ visit the girl's dormitories, and vice versa, naturally. It looks as though you great deal of work done." she said, her sharp eyes noting Hermione's bruised lips, the rumpled sheets on the bed, and Draco Malfoy's equally ruffled hair. Hermione blushed, but she could almost have sworn she saw the Professor turn her head away slightly to hide a smile. 

The Professor recovered her composure. "I am here to break some bad news, Hermione," she said. "I know of your great friendship with Ron Weasley. I'm afraid that today he ran away from the school, and attempted to drown himself at the coast near here."

"What!" Hermione squeaked. "Is he alright? Where is he? Why the hell did he do that?"

Professor McGonagall ignored the slang. "I honestly don't know why he did it, Hermione. If you'd like to follow me to the hospital wing…"

Hermione suddenly heard McGonagall's words become terribly loud in her ears, which buzzed angrily. She felt her eyes go very wide and swimmy, and a huge force started thumping in her brain. She felt very unstable, and put out a hand to stop herself falling. Professor McGonagall watched in shock as Hermione wavered like a dandelion clock in a summer breeze, and then fell to a crumpled heap at her feet.

*

Pale, pastel colours swarm and merged together in front of Hermione's softly fluttering eyelids. Everything was a mass of white, with small, shimmering coloured blobs bobbing up and down. She could hear tiny muffled chinks like metal being tapped against glass. The vision swam into focus. Madam Pomfrey had her back to Hermione. She was busily mixing together a bright red concoction in a little glass vial. Professor McGonagall was sitting stiffly in one of the visitor chairs at the edge of the room. She suddenly stood up, and walked across the room, glancing at Hermione as she did so. Hermione quickly shut her eyes, and opened them a crack when she heard the footsteps pass. 

"So what do you think caused her to pass out, Poppy?" she heard McGonagall ask Madam Pomfrey. "Was it just shock?"

"That's what I want to find out," said the school nurse, sounding grim. "This is a Revealing Potion I'm just whipping up here, it should tell me what, if anything, is wrong with her. Hermione is a level-headed person. She's not one of the shrieky, hysterical girls. It just doesn't seem right that she would faint at the drop of a hat, like that."

Madam Pomfrey added a spoonful of what looked like whipped cream, and poured the steaming contents into a glass beaker. "We'll just have to see, I suppose," she added.

"And how is Weasley?" McGonagall asked, glancing towards Ron's bed at the end of the ward.

Madam Pomfrey looked happier at this question. "He's swallowed a lot of sea water, but that should all pass through his system, no problem. I've done a tricky little charm to sea if he has any brain damage, and that came back as negative. Just thank the great wizards that he was discovered when he was. All he needs now is to sleep it off. It could have been a lot worse."

"We'll have to get to the bottom of why he did it, of course," said McGonagall.

"Naturally. But let him get better first." She walked over to Hermione's bed, the professor following behind her. "Come now, Hermione, I want you to drink this," she said, brandishing the beaker.

Hermione kept her eyes shut, pretending to be still asleep. 

"Hermione. Open your eyes," said Madam Pomfrey sternly. Hermione unwillingly did so. The nurse's eyes were twinkling. "Twenty five years of experience mean I can always tell if someone is really asleep, Hermione," she said, grinning. Hermione grinned weakly back, and accepted the beaker. Madam Pomfrey had stirred in the whipped cream, and it tasted lovely; a thick, sugary, fluffy pink drink that was strangely reminiscent of strawberries. Nothing happened for a minute or two. Then Hermione started to feel exceedingly strange. An odd, tingly warm feeling started to spread out inside her body, from a starting point of her stomach. She shivered as it travelled down her legs and arms, the feeling even penetrating her finger tips and toes. She felt it swell in her skull, and she felt very light-headed again, as though she was able to fly. 

Hermione suddenly noticed with shock that her body was radiating green-gold light from every part. She looked to Madam Pomfrey, who was nodding satisfactorily. 

"As I thought," she muttered to herself, and was just about to turn away, when the light suddenly took on a red tinge. Madam Pomfrey spun back, looking at it aghast. The light turned back to green, then red again, then green one more, as if it couldn't make up its mind. Professor McGonagall looked from Hermione to Madam Pomfrey and back again, frowning worriedly.

"Poppy," she hissed. "What in the world…?"

Madam Pomfrey continued to stare hard at the light for a few more moments. Then she seemed to recover herself, and she pulled out her wand from her pocket.

"Finite incantatem," she muttered, and the light vanished. Hermione struggled up on her pillows, staring hard. "Madam Pomfrey," she started, "what…?" She trailed off as the nurse strode across the room to her bookshelf at the other end of the hospital. She ran an expert finger across the leather tomes, and quickly pulled down a book bound in silver silk. Madam Pomfrey motioned for McGonagall to come over, and she drew a curtain around them both, obscuring them from Hermione's vision.

*

Hermione was slipping in and out of sleep. It was late at night, and she felt even more exhausted than she had done for the past few weeks. She could hear Ron's snores a few beds down from her, although she could not see him. Hermione felt frightened and alone. She hadn't heard anything more from the teachers for hours…

Finally, Hermione gave in the struggle, and shut her eyes. She turned over, and went straight to sleep. A few minutes later, Madam Pomfrey walked quietly over to her bed, with Professor McGonagall. 

"Are you going to tell me what the spell did, or not, Poppy?" McGonagall hissed in her ear. Madam Pomfrey sighed audibly, and turned to face her. 

"The Revealing potion shows if the patient is really ill or not - it's very useful for those simply trying to skip lessons. It also highlights the area of the body that is affected; for instance if a pupil had a broken ankle, their body would radiate red light from the base of the leg, and green light everywhere else. If a patient was suffering from heart disease, then the red light would be shown from the left side of the chest. It's a very useful diagnostic method."

"But Hermione was showing green light, then red, the green again and so on; all over her body. How can the whole of her body be affected by an illness?"

"This is what I want to find out," said Madam Pomfrey grimly. "It is something I have never seen in all my years of experience. As for the changing of the colour, I do know what that means. I have seen it a few times before. It means that the patient has a Muggle disease, one that does not affect pure-blood witches and wizards."

"So… because Hermione is a Muggle-born, she's susceptible?" asked McGonagall, polishing her glasses on her sleeve. "What could it be?"

Madam Pomfrey did not answer this question; instead she laid the silver-bound book down on the seat next to Hermione's bed. She pulled out her wand, and pointed it at the already-sleeping Hermione.

"Dormire," she said quietly, and a thin line of silver-white light shot from the end of the wand. Madam Pomfrey circled in the wand in an arc, drawing a silver line completely around Hermione's body. "Just in case," she muttered, more to herself than Professor McGonagall. 

Madam Pomfrey sat down on the bed beside the sleeping form, and carefully rolled up the sleeves of Hermione's robe and jumper. All along the inside of both of her arms were chains of bruises, in varying colours, from rich purpley-blacks to anaemic greens and yellows. 

"Good God!" McGonagall exclaimed, horror-struck. "Someone's been beating the child!"

Madam Pomfrey simply shook her head. She picked up the heavy silver book, and flicked through it quickly, her fingers shaking a little.

"Oh, merciful Mother" she said suddenly, tracing her finger along the thick, black text. "As I thought…"

*

__

Draco

Draco knocked slightly apprehensively on the door. He really didn't want to have to do this, but he could think of no other course of action right now. He heard galloping feet, and the door was flung open. A very stressed looking Harry stood in the doorway. Draco looked down his nose at him. 

"Malfoy! What the f-"

"Now, now," Draco interjected. "I'm sure your mother wouldn't like to hear you using language like that. It would make her turn in her grave, if I'm not greatly mistaken."

"Shut up!" Harry shouted angrily. "Don't you _dare_ say a word about her! What the hell do you want, anyway?"

Draco barged past him, into the dorm room. He laughed. "Nice," he said. "But not as nice as the Slytherin dorms." He smirked infuriatingly, carefully concealing his own worries. He went and sat down on Ron's neatly made bed, and bounced up and down a few times to make it messy again. Neville, Dean and Seamus were sitting in the corner of the room, playing a half-hearted game of Gobstones. They had stopped when Draco came in, and he noticed that they were all staring at him with contempt.

"Just tell us what you want, then out," said Seamus forcefully. Draco flashed him a dazzling white smile, and reclined back on the bed. Be nice, he told himself. I know it's hard, but this is important. He cleared his throat.

"Um… Harry," he said. Harry's head jerked round to look at him, as though he'd been shot.

"What?" he said, looking very distrustful. Draco scratched his head, feeling like a scientist about to destroy his life's work.

"Hermione's in the hospital wing, Harry," he said quietly. Harry jumped up from his seat, the blood draining from his face.

"_What?_" he repeated. "Why? What the hell have you done to her?"

Draco felt almost scared at this outburst. "Nothing!" he shouted defensively. "McGonagall came to tell her about Ron, and she fainted when she heard the news."

Harry sank back slowly onto his bed, his white face propped in his hands. "Hermione isn't the type to faint," he said slowly.

"I know," said Draco. "And that was more than an hour ago. I can't understand what's taking so long up there in the hospital wing." He rubbed his hand worriedly over his eyes.

"Jesus Christ," Harry muttered. He stood up again, and paced the room. "When are they bloody well going to let me see Ron?" he said. "Perhaps… perhaps I should go up there."

"No, Harry," said Dean quickly, getting to his feet quickly. "They'll come as soon as they possibly can, Harry. Professor McGonagall said it was important for Madam Pomfrey to be on her own with Ron, to give him the best chance possible - no distractions. She knows what she's talking about."

Harry nodded slowly, and sank to the floor, twisting his fingers into knots. Draco got off the bed, and came quietly across to where the other boys were sitting. He felt a lump in his throat.

"I, er… I don't know how to say… to put… Harry. I'm going out with Hermione, as you know. And… I know that we've always been enemies, different sides of the line, as it were, and nothing's ever really going to change that, I'm not that naïve. But… I would like it if we were at least civil towards each other. I… really care about Hermione. I don't want petty squabbling to get in the way of that."

Draco watched as Harry looked him very hard in the eye, sizing up how genuine he was being. Seemingly satisfied, he suddenly put out his hand. Draco shook it, slightly surprised. Feeling emboldened by this, he decided to go a step further.

"I don't know what's been going between you and Ron recently, and don't bother telling me that it's nothing, because it's quite plainly obvious that's not true. But what ever it is, get it sorted out, Harry. Life's too short."

Harry regarded him from his bright green eyes for what seemed like hours. He muttered something very quickly and quietly, almost hoping that Draco would not hear it. But Draco caught the words, and smiled. "No problem," he said.

A knock came at the door, and Harry sprang to his feet. He flew to the door, and opened it.

"Potter," said Professor McGonagall. "You may see Mr. Weasley now." Her eyes strayed to the other boys, and seemed to jump when she noticed Draco. He got to his feet.

"Professor," he said, walking towards her. "May I, may I see Hermione, too?"

Professor McGonagall shrewdly looked him up and down. "If you want to," she said.

Harry and Draco galloped up the stairs in the wake of the foreboding teacher. Draco wasn't sure, but he thought he had seen a flicker of something in the Professor's eyes that he couldn't quite read. He climbed the last flight with trepidation. The three walked quietly into the horribly clinical hospital wing. Harry ran across to Ron's bedside, who was sleeping silently. Harry turned around to look for the nurse, who was bustling over.

"Don't you dare wake him up, Potter," she said sternly.

"Madam Pomfrey," said Harry quickly, sounding out of breath. "How is he? Does he have any brain damage, anything wrong with him?"

Madam Pomfrey smiled maternally down at Harry, his glasses askew, his eyes wide with fear. "No, Harry," she said kindly. "He's had a lucky escape. Ron will be fine: physically. But we will be getting to the bottom of why he felt so desperate, that he wanted to end it all. We will be questioning you and several of the other Gryffindors in due course."

"Fine, fine," said Harry, barely hearing. Draco watched from the other side of the hospital, seeing Harry lean over Ron, to whisper some words to him. He had a feeling they'd be sorting out their problem, whatever it was, in due course.

He turned to Madam Pomfrey as she bustled back down the room. "Madam Pomfrey?" he said, stepping in front of her. "Can I see Hermione?"

The school nurse smiled and him; although it was almost a sad smile. "Of course you can, Draco," she said. She glanced at him, and winked. "I heard all about your Quidditch shed escapades from Madam Hooch!"

Draco blushed, and looked at his shoes. "Huh… um… yes," he stuttered. 

"Follow me," she said, and led Draco over to a cubicle at the end of the room. The curtains were drawn around Hermione's bed, and she quietly drew them back. "I've given Hermione a sleeping charm," she said. "But please be quiet anyway."

Draco slowly sat down in the chair by the bed. "Do you know what's wrong with her?" he asked. "Why she fainted?"

Madam Pomfrey sighed, and drew another chair up to join Draco. She took his hand. "Draco," she said. "I suspect that Hermione, who as you know is a Muggle-born, has a disease, one that only affects Muggle humans. She is susceptible to it because of her ancestry."

"What is it?" Draco interjected rudely.

"It's called Leukaemia. A disease of the blood. It's a kind of cancer."

"_What_? All she did was faint! How the hell can she have _cancer_?"

As explanation, Madam Pomfrey carefully rolled up the sleeves of Hermione's robes. Draco peered at the bruises.

"Bloody hell," he said under his breath. "It looks like someone's been beating her up."

When Madam Pomfrey left them, Draco lent over Hermione's peaceful body, and kissed her hair. "Hermione," he said, sounding close to tears. "Please don't die." And there, in the hospital wing, Draco Malfoy laid his head down on Hermione's bed, and wept for her, for himself, and for the loss of innocence, as he had not done since he was a little boy.

To be continued…


	6. All

The Long and Winding Road - Part Six

Weeks passed, and the cold snap in the air soon melted to warmth and light in the spring months. Purple crocuses nosed their way through the crumbling earth, and red tulips blinked shyly from the flowerbeds. The cherry trees in the Hogwart's grounds blossomed, and couples were often seen whispering sweet nothings to each other in the long grass, pink petals swirling past and wreathing their hair. And all the while, Draco Malfoy returned to the sick bay at every opportunity he got. He made a pretence of doing his homework at Hermione's bedside, whilst doing nothing but staring through mists at Hermione's sleeping figure. He vaguely understood Madam Pomfrey's emphatic words of reassurance. Hermione's disease had been diagnosed relatively fast, which greatly increased her chances. He daydreamed through lessons, staring out at the cruel sunlight through the window, casting a golden tinge on the world. Everyone around him were carrying on their daily lives, rose-tinted. He felt black and charred on the inside. He was oblivious of the teachers casting a blind eye to the missing homework and the lack of attention, and he had no idea that they discussed him for hours amongst themselves, unable to understand how one Gryffindor girl could make this untouchable Slytherin boy feel so wretched. 

The truth was that Draco had grown closer to Hermione in a few weeks, than he had to anyone else in an entire lifetime. This ordinary, haphazard girl, with long brown hair and doe eyes, and Muggle parentage. This girl, with no obvious sexuality at all, only love and kindness and cleverness, had ensnared him… and his heart. And though he had coated her with the same black, thick tar that he used for all Muggle-borns and Gryffindors, the moment he set eyes on her, and he had only really known her for under a month, he loved her. And it was the most incredible, frightening, wonderful and painful experience he had ever had. And he realised it was an emotion he had never before felt. 

Knowing that he could so easily lose all that he had discovered turned his heart to ice, for to lose her would be indescribable agony. Hermione had slept a lot over the past few weeks, her face growing progressively paler, and her body progressively thinner. Madam Pomfrey had brought in a wizard doctor from St. Mungo's to help treat her with a cocktail of drugs. Right now she was fixed up to three drips, a machine monitoring her white blood cell count. The white nightdress she was wearing was almost the same colour as her skin. Draco ran his hand down her face, tracing her features with one fingertip. Hermione's eyes blinked open for a second, then quickly shut again, a small smile on her lips. Draco saw through that at once. He knew she was in a lot of pain, and felt very, very weak. He felt too tired to cry, and the pain ran too deep for tears. All he felt was numb longing and fear, willing her with every ounce of strength to get better. But he knew in his heart that it wasn't going to happen. 

*

Ron had left the hospital wing twenty-four hours after being admitted. Physically fine, he had been discharged, and went straight to his dormitory room that day. The other four had been in lessons, which he had felt very grateful for. He quickly gathered up his belongings, and shoved them haphazardly into his battered old brown velvet suitcase, which had most of the plush rubbed off it. Ron had dragged it out of the room, and down the main staircase. He had managed to find the Hufflepuff wing in the castle, and had found Justin Finch-Fletchly in the seventh year dormitory. They had a spare bed in the room, and so Ron had moved in. He spent his days avoiding Professor McGonagall's psychiatrist chats, and avoiding Harry.

Harry had spent the next few days simply living on auto-pilot; living for the end of the day when he could get into bed and sleep. It was only in dreams that he could escape his thoughts that ate him up with guilt. As much as he wanted to switch off the light and pull the covers over his head permanently, Draco's words always crept into little niches of his mind, and haunted his waking hours. 

__

"I don't know what's been going between you and Ron recently, and don't bother telling me that it's nothing, because it's quite plainly obvious that's not true. But what ever it is, get it sorted out, Harry. Life's too short."

Life's too short… life's too short. Harry hated to admit to himself, but Malfoy was right. Ron could easily have succeeded with his suicide attempt. Harry knew perfectly well that he had been the final factor in a long line of things, the factor that had tipped Ron over the precipice into mad desperation. So desperate that he thought the only place of peace he could find was death. Perhaps it had been a cry for help; Ron hadn't really wanted to die… but even so. 

He tossed and turned that night, staring up at the ceiling, watching shadowy shapes merge across the room from clouds drifting happily by the window in their star-spattered sky. How had he got himself into such a mess? He was torn with emotions, and of course there was the constant yanking at his heart because of Hermione. He could lose both his best friends in one fell swoop. 

I'll go and see her tomorrow morning, he thought to himself decisively. But the sliver of moon winked at him as a dusty cloud drifted past it, uncovering yellow-white light. The beams fell straight onto Harry's bed, and though he buried his face in his pillow, sleep escaped him. 

Sighing in annoyance, he threw the duvet off the bed, and padded silently across the room to grab his dressing gown. He walked along the dark corridors; the only sound audible to him was that of his own breathing. Harry jogged up the staircase to the hospital room, and carefully turned the handle on the door. 

The sick bay was a large room, with huge bay windows covering all of one wall. It was much lighter than the rest of the castle at night, and the starlight shone onto the white, white beds. He padded softly over to where Hermione was sleeping. She had thrown her duvet off in her sleep, and was lying exposed in her thin cotton nightdress, only the starlight cloaking her. Harry sat down next to her. He had planned just to sit and look at Hermione, but his presence must have woken her, and Hermione stirred. 

"Harry!" she whispered, forcing her sleepy eyes open. She looked at her watch. "It's the middle of the night!" she said incredulously. Harry noted how weak her voice sounded. 

"I'm sorry I woke you," he whispered, leaning close so she could hear. "I just wanted to come up and see you. I couldn't sleep."

"How are you?" she breathed. Harry nearly laughed. It struck him as both hilarious and tragically sad that Hermione should ask him how he was, when she was lying there in a hospital bed, slowly but surely slipping away. He felt a hot prickle of tears in his eyes, and blinked hard.

"Not so bad," he said. "How-"

Hermione cut him off. "Yeah right, Harry," she said. "What's happening with Ron? It's to do with him, isn't it? You know why he tried to commit suicide, I just know it."

Harry gripped the sides of his chair very hard until his knuckles turned white, and tried to steady his breathing. "I don't want you to be worrying about it," he said weakly.

Hermione raised on eyebrow at him, frowning. "Harry," she said forcefully. "If you think it's something worth worrying about, then I have to know. I'll worry more if you don't tell me, and imagine all kinds of dreadful things. _Tell me_, Harry."

"Harry!" she exclaimed, and Harry turned his face away, feeling pathetic. 

"Don't look at me," he muttered. Hermione propped herself up on her elbows, and tried to reach for him. 

"Harry, please!" she said. "It's me! You don't have to be embarrassed about getting upset with _me_! We've been friends for seven years, for God's sake."

Harry turned back slowly, and hugged her. As Hermione's cheek brushed against his skin and Harry felt her lips press on his flesh, he shivered. They had gone out together in the sixth year, for about three months. Hermione had broken up with him angrily, accusing him of having an affair. It was true that he had been very distant during their rather brief relationship, though perhaps for different reasons than the ones Hermione had in mind. He had been going through a sexuality crisis, not knowing what he was or what he wanted. It was so stupid. He had been alienating Ron for being gay, and yet he had been convinced he was homosexual himself last year. It had been so confusing; not knowing what to do or where to turn, and all the while having Hermione wanting a relationship, as after all she was quite entitled to. He had since discovered that many teenagers, particularly boys, go through a stage of thinking that they're gay and it just passes. And it had. But Harry realised that for some people the feelings never go away, a fact that he had conveniently ignored with Ron. He had locked that part of him, that stage of him life, away in an untouchable part of his mind, filed under lock and key. And now the lock had been opened, and all those thoughts came tumbling out once more.

Hermione sat back on the pillow, and Harry regarded her silently. He knew that there would always be a part of him that loved Hermione, a love that was more than just friendship. But it could never come to fruition. He didn't make Hermione happy, and now she had found someone who did…

Harry took Hermione's slender hand, and talked and talked, explaining the events of the past few weeks. She remained silent for the entire time, simply listening and nodding. And then, Hermione spoke.

*

Harry walked back to bed slowly, savouring the memories and the words. He knew what he had to do in the morning, and it was going to be one of the hardest things he'd ever said. Saying sorry, and admitting that you're wrong is always hard, no matter how much anyone denies it. Humans are proud creatures.

Harry knew where Ron was staying; it was quite obvious as Ron now spent all of his free time surrounded by the Hufflepuffs, who had adopted him, in a strange sort of sense. He got into bed quietly, and pulled the duvet over him once more. It was going to be a long day tomorrow.

*

"Dean! Take a hint! Go away!" Lavender threw herself angrily onto her bed, smothering her face in her pillow.

"Why are you being like this?" Dean shouted angrily. "Why do you ignore me? What's happened - have I done something?"

Lavender rolled over to face him. Dean's pathetically crushed face irritated her further. "Just leave me alone," she hissed. Dean didn't move, he just looked at his feet, and shuffled them. Lavender felt a bubble of anger rise up in her throat.

"Dean! GET THE HELL OUT OF MY ROOM!"

Dean walked silently to the door, and then turned to look back. "You've changed," he said. "You're not the person I used to know."

Lavender giggled into her duvet. Too right, she thought to herself. I've grown up and left you behind. And I'm not just Lavender Brown anymore. I'm Lavender Brown… plus one. She rolled over, and laid a tentative hand on her stomach. It was slightly rounded now; not noticeable under her clothes, but she could definitely feel the difference. 

She had read a million books and stories in magazines about teenage girls getting pregnant, and every single one of them had wanted any escape from the situation. Abortion, adoption, whatever it took. It was strange, but once the initial hysteria and shock had worn off, there was a small corner of herself that was piping up; "Lavender! Keep the baby!"

It was the most natural thing in the world, and she had encountered many pregnant women in her lifetime. It had never seemed strange or incredible to her then. But the sheer notion that this tiny life was developing inside her, seemed at the least, ludicrous. How could there be another person growing slowly in her very body? Lavender put her hand back on her stomach. But there was no mistaking it. Her breasts had started to grow fuller and rounder already, and her stomach looked curved and taut. 

But she was seventeen. The baby was due in about October, she had worked out. She would have left Hogwarts by then. She would be five months pregnant at the end of the school term. Could she disguise the pregnancy up until then? Surely people would notice the size of her at five months. The shame of being expelled, as she surely would be if they found out, would just be too great. 

Lavender imagined taking her NEWTs, sitting at the desk writing on her exam papers like all the others, feeling this child kicking inside her. She had gone to the library the other day. Surprisingly, there had been a section on Human Biology, and having selected a likely looking book, Lavender had whisked it away under her jumper. Soon books wouldn't be the only thing she would be hiding under there.

The book had been very interesting. At eight weeks, which was where she was at now, the foetus was said to be an inch long, and had all of its organs developed. Lavender pored over the picture of eight weeks. The thing in the picture looked very odd. It was like a cross between an alien and a fish. The head was huge in proportion to the body, and the eyes were already visible. The fingers were all developed, and Lavender thought she could see tiny gills on the side of the head. 

Lavender sighed, and threw the book under her pillow. She had always been very much pro-choice, finding abortions quite acceptable. But now she had this tiny human, this baby growing inside her, she started to see things differently. There was no way that anyone was going to kill her baby.

*

Ron looked at Harry for what seemed like hours, in mute silence. He could see Harry swallowing nervously, awaiting his response. 

"The truth is," he said softly, causing Harry to bend forward to hear him. "I think I've always loved you; I just didn't know it… or let myself realise it until quite recently. I can't tell you how hard it was to watch you flirt with Ginny and have strings of girlfriends - including Hermione, for heaven's sake! It so painful; and I longed to tell you. I just dreaded what you would say…"

Harry looked down at his knees. "Couldn't you just have told me, instead of suddenly kissing me like that? I would have reacted quite differently if you-"

"I know," said Ron. "I know. But I heard you call that boy of the Quidditch team a pouf for being crap as a Keeper, and I just couldn't do it. Do you really think I planned to just kiss you like that? It was entirely spontaneous… a spur of the moment thing. Of course I regretted it the moment I had done it, but it was too late then. All I could do was hope that you wouldn't take it too badly. Of course you did. Anyone would."

"Don't make excuses for what I did, Ron," Harry muttered darkly. "But… you have to accept the fact that I'm not gay-"

"No," said Ron, smiling a little. "You love Hermione."

Harry jerked up as though he had been shocked. "What?" he breathed, knowing even as he said it that Ron was quite correct. He inwardly cursed his shrewd observations. "What do you mean?" he stuttered, trying to cover himself.

"Harry. I know. I'm your… best friend, it was quite obvious." He sighed, and stood up suddenly. "There are some things that don't elude even little old me." He paced the length of the room, then suddenly threw his hands up in the air in exasperation. 

"All I was asking for was a bit of compassion, Harry. I wasn't expecting you to like the idea, but I did think that you might _try_ to understand. I know it was hardly the best way to tell you, but I always thought, once you'd calmed down…"

Harry twiddled his thumbs. He wasn't very good at all this touchy-feely stuff. "I'm sorry Ron," he said quietly, feeling this was the best way to consummate the conversation. 

Ron muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, "And that's supposed to make up for it?"

Harry bristled. This wasn't how it was meant to go. Ron was meant to accept his apology unfailingly, and everything would be back to normal again. Well, sort of. Harry realised he had watched too many daytime soaps with Dudley in his childhood. 

Ron was deftly knotting the tassel on the four-poster into a knot a boy scout would be proud of. Harry watched him, irritated. 

"Look," he said finally. "Hermione's ill. Very ill. And she might… there's a possibility she…" He couldn't say it. In one sense none of this felt real, but in another, it was choking him with its grim reality. Ron wasn't looking up. He was still knotting the damn tassel. 

"Jesus, Ron! Hermione's got Leukaemia! We have to keep up some kind of pretence of friendship, for her sake at least. I've said my piece, and if you can't accept it, then the responsibility lies with you. All I want is for Hermione to get better. And if… if she doesn't… then she shouldn't be worrying about us when it happens."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Draco was in his dorm. Aconite, his smoky-grey cat was wandering around the room, mewing. He was ignoring her. It was late May. As the months had passed, and the weather grown warmer, Hermione had not shown any sign of improvement. Though her state had only deteriorated very slightly in the passing weeks, it was enough to give Draco the excuse to slouch into further misery. Even Goyle and Crabbe were becoming annoyed with him. 

Then, on May the first, something unexpected happened. The sun had actually struggled out from behind the clouds, and was shining valiantly. This, though incredible in itself, was nothing to match what was about to become. 

Draco stared morosely out of the window into the blinding glare. He felt irritated by the bright blue sky and warm breeze ruffling his hair. How dare the weather be so cheerful? He squinted at the sky. A dark, round shape seemed to be hurtling towards the open window. He stood up, curious. 

A tiny Scops owl, the sort that was used for very short-distance deliveries tumbled into the room. It had a note attached to its leg. Draco ripped it off hurriedly. The piece of parchment had a scrawled brief message on it in an untidy hand:

__

Draco - Come up to the sick bay immediately.

Madam Pomfrey

Draco's heart beat very fast. This was it. What he had been dreading for months and months. Hermione had died in the night. He got shakily to his feet, his heart thudding painfully in his chest. He went to the door, and half-walked, half-ran down the corridor and up the many flights of stairs.

__

Stop it! he was telling himself inwardly. _She might want you for anything. Anything at all._ His logical side, as usual, did not win.

"Oh God, oh God," he cried outloud as he rounded the last corridor. "I never said goodbye to her. Oh God…"

He dreaded what he was going to see when he opened that door. Would she still be in her bed, covered by a white sheet? He had never seen a dead body before in his life. _I bet my father's seen loads of dead bodies_, he thought as he walked slowly up to the familiar oak-panelled door. _Stop it!_

His hand rested on the door-knob. He braced himself, trying to bite back tears. Draco flung open the door… and his mouth hung open in shock.

Madam Pomfrey was seated by the bed, spooning up some onion soup from a blue porcelain bowl. Hermione was sitting up, propped up by pillows, and dressed in a blue sweatshirt and grey tracksuit trousers. She shot Draco a smile as he stepped slowly into the room. 

"Hermione!" he said incredulously, and looked to Madam Pomfrey in amazement. 

"Come here, Draco," she said, and patted the chair next to the bed. "We've got some good news."

Draco sat down, and took Hermione's hand. She smiled at him. "I'm in remission," she said. 

*

Hermione improved rapidly in the following weeks. She was allowed to go back to her dormitory to live in, after many begging sessions with Madam Pomfrey. She started to return to her lessons, starting with one double a day. Parvati and Lavender had been given the task of making sure she didn't over-exert herself, and they delighted in not letting her do any homework. Everyone was very pleased with her progress. 

Hermione is herself was taking it one day at a time. She was starting to feel annoyed and almost suffocated by all the attention that Draco lavished on her. She could see that Harry and Ron were putting up some kind of front for her benefit, and though it didn't fool her for a second, she was touched that they had thought to do so. 

Every day, Madam Pomfrey would to see her and check on her progress. She knew that the school nurse was not at all happy that she wasn't staying in the hospital wing, but Hermione had had enough of that place for a lifetime. 

Her parents had given her a Muggle laptop computer for her birthday the previous year. At the time, she had been amused with their choice; she honestly couldn't really see much use for it. It worked only sporadically in the strange force fields of Hogwarts, and though she had taught herself to use it, and occasionally used the word-processing program to type things up, it had mainly gathered dust. 

On her umpteen-day of loneliness whilst all the others attended their lessons, Hermione dug it out from her cupboard in a fit of reminiscence. She turned it on… and it did nothing. Hermione sighed, and shook it up and down a bit. The picture flickered into focus. She clicked on the internet icon, though she did not really know why she did so. 

She went onto a search engine, and typed in 'Leukaemia'. It brought back a lot of results, and slightly bewildered, Hermione clicked on one at random. The first paragraph told her things that she already knew from Madam Pomfrey; it was a disease of the blood, where the white blood cells dwindled so greatly in number that they were unable to fight off any viruses or bacteria that entered the body. 

She scrolled down, looking for new information. _The disease is more common in children, who, thanks to the increases in modern medicine, have a far greater survival rate than adults. _

When she read that, Hermione hand went automatically to her hair. She had only had two courses of chemotherapy when they discovered that she was in remission, so there was only a small bald patch at her crown. But every day more fell out when she brushed it. It was stupid to care about your hair when you're so ill, but it did matter. It mattered a lot. Hermione had taken to wearing a stupid purple baseball cap that Lavender had given her, with 'Rugby Players Do It with Funny Shaped Balls' written on the front. Professor McGonagall had not been very approving when she saw it. 

Hermione snapped out of her daydream when her eyes focused on the word 'remission'. _Leukaemia patients sometimes go into remission, only to come out again after a few months and rapidly deteriorate. Described as a 'swan song' of good health, this can be a sign that they are not going to get better again._

Hermione rocked back in her chair, breathing hard. She knew it. She just knew it. She had been sure that there were things that, as a witch, Madam Pomfrey did not know about Leukaemia, and she had been right. Shit. 

Hermione did not feel panicked, as though she had almost been expecting it. Slowly, deliberately, she turned off the laptop and put it away. She lay back on her bed, and ran her hands though her falling-out hair. 

*

Weeks passed, and Hermione kept her secret to herself; not even telling Draco. The seventh years that took Herbology were due to set off on a four-day field trip to Cornwall to study the rare aquatic plants there for their NEWTs coursework. This meant both Harry and Ron would be leaving, along with Goyle and Crabbe amongst many others. Harry was concerned about leaving Hermione, but she told he not to be an idiot, and they left early that morning. 

"It should be good weather for them," Hermione said blandly to Draco, sitting on the floor in his dormitory. 

"Mmm hmm," he replied distractedly. Draco was staring out of the window. It was nearing dusk, and the darkening sky was casting a smoky tinge on the school grounds.

"Do you remember when we met?" he said suddenly.

"What, in the first year?"

"No… I mean when we really met. It was in the Quidditch shed; that freezing cold night. You were being all pious and holier-than-thou, and I was just being a bit of a wanker."

Hermione laughed. "You've changed," she said. "You're not like that now."

Draco came and sat down next to her. "Thank God you came into remission," he said softly, and kissed her hair. Hermione pulled away. 

"Draco," she said suddenly, not looking at him but watching the sun dip down in the rose-pink sky. "I haven't done all the things I want to do. I haven't graduated from Hogwarts, or been to Africa on safari, or drunk cold coconut milk on a Caribbean beach. I haven't… read all the books I want to read…"

Draco laughed. "Trust you. Only you would… why are you saying this, anyway? There's plenty of time; you've got your whole life! Hermione?" He realised that she was crying silently into his shoulder. 

"What is it?" He licked his lips nervously. She did not answer him, but instead carried on in the same tack. 

"And what I want to do most in the world, is to love and be loved…"

"Well, you are!" Draco interjected. "I love you, and Ron and Harry do, and your parents-"

"…and to show you how much I love you."

Draco looked at Hermione, who was crouched low across his chest, suddenly weak once more. He had to play her words over and over in his mind before he understood.

"Are you sure?" he asked, and she nodded.

Draco picked Hermione up in his arms, and carried her over to the four-poster bed. He couldn't quite understand where all that had come from. But he didn't have time to think anymore, as Hermione put her arms around him, and kissed him, so softly and sweetly, that he felt as though he could cry. 

The sun slipped below the horizon, and the room fell into darkness, lit only by the stars.

*

It was about five in the morning. Draco wasn't quite sure what had woken him, but he was suddenly wide-awake, and could not go back to sleep. Smiling into the darkness at the warm weight snuggled next to him, Draco carefully rolled out of bed, and tiptoed into the bathroom. He pulled the door to, and switched on the light. Draco put the lid down on the toilet seat, and sat on it, deep in thought. He tingled at the sweet memories he held on to. But he was puzzled at Hermione's words from last night. Why had she suddenly come-over all regretful like that? She was in remission now…

He sat on the toilet a few more minutes, turning the conversation over and over in his mind for any clues. But there were none. Quietly, he opened the bathroom door, and his jaw dropped in shock.

There, kneeling by his bed, was a pale silver figure. He or she had their back to Draco, and he stayed rooted to the ground with fear. The figure was bent over the Hermione's sleeping form, and appeared to be stroking her hair. Draco stumbled forward slightly. The figure immediately turned around. She was a woman; with long curly hair, and almond shaped eyes. Draco thought he could see wings tucked behind her long silk dress. She was made from silvery light, but entirely solid. She was certainly not a ghost. 

Draco didn't feel afraid anymore as the woman's smile bathed him in a warm glow. She wasn't speaking outloud, but he could hear her voice in his mind.

"There's no need to worry about Hermione," she said. "She is being looked after."

"OK," Draco thought back. 

"Please tell Harry that I love him very much," she said, and he nodded. The woman melted from the air into nothing, and it was then that Draco realised who she was. He got back into bed next to Hermione, who was still sleeping, feeling at peace. 

When he woke up the next morning, Hermione was dead in his arms. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Draco tore the edge of the order-of-service with trembling figures, tears trembling on his eyelashes. The coffin was at the front of the church, covered with wreaths and flowers. He had been angry when he heard that the service was to be held in a church. He had known Hermione for the strong atheist that she was, but her mother had insisted, and there was really to be no arguing with her. 

Mr. and Mrs. Granger sat at the front of the church, weeping quietly as the service progressed. Professor McGonagall was crying next to Dumbledore, who was dabbing at his eyes behind their half-moon glasses. Draco looked across the church to Harry and Ron, who were huddled together on the end pew, biting back tears. He knew that they both blamed themselves immensely for going on the Herbology trip and leaving Hermione. There was something he had to tell Harry afterwards. 

All of the seventh year was crammed into the small church, along with quite a number of Gryffindors from other years. The congregation rose to sing. It was the final song of the service, and Hermione's favourite, Draco knew. A Muggle band that he had never heard of. He stood, and stared hard at the words, his vision blurring as he read them.

__

The long and winding road

That leads to your door

Will never disappear

I've seen that road before.

It always leads me here

Lead me to your door.

The wild and windy night

That the rain washed away

Has left a pool of tears

Crying for the day

I leave me standing here

Let me know the way.

Many times I've been alone,

And many times I've cried

In many ways you'll never know

How many ways I try

And still they lead me back

To the long winding road

You left me standing here

A long, long time ago

Don't leave me waiting here

Lead me to your home

*

Later, when the masses had returned to Hogwarts, and Draco had told Harry what he knew he much tell him, Draco knelt by the grave. He laid a white rose on the freshly turned earth, and sighed. 

"Crookshanks has made friends with Aconite," he said. "I'll look after him for you."

The summer breeze ruffled his hair, and Draco knew he had finally run out of tears. "I'll see you then," he said softly. He got up, and started to walk down the road. It led to his home. 


End file.
